A New Journey
by GroovyKat
Summary: Rose Tyler and the Duplicate Doctor have to come to terms with being left behind by the Doctor on Bad Wolf Bay and look to begin a new journey as just the Doctor and Rose domesticated. But a message delivered across the winds and buried in the sands of the Bay suggests that her original journey may be far from over. Rose/Tentoo Rated M just in case.
1. Bad Wolf Bay

Disclaimer: I forgot to add this. I don't own Doctor Who, the characters, or anything. If I did, then Ten and Rose would still be in the TARDISbeing the stuff of legend together. Anyhoo. Not mine, just borrowing them a while.

~Rose and the Duplicate Doctor react to being left behind on Bad Wolf Bay~

She sensed his presence beside her long before she felt his soft hand find hers. She shuddered as she felt the familiar slide of his fingers thread between hers. She gasped as she felt the supportive squeeze of his hand strengthen as the TARDIS gave a final wheeze and then screeched as it disappeared completely from view. The despondent look she saw in his eyes as she tilted her face to look up at him mirrored the despair in her own.

"I _hate_ him," she breathed after a moment.

He gave her hand a sharp tug to pull her close and released it to wrap his arms tightly around her. "No you don't," he corrected softly against her hair.

She sniffed wetly against the lapel of his blue blazer and moved flush against him as she threaded her arms under his to complete their embrace. "How could he … you? Why?"

A shudder ran through his body at the question and he lightly pulled back with a clearing rattle in his throat. His head cocked to one side and he spoke with a look through his lashes. "Well. That's about five potential questions in one…"

"Two," she corrected softly as she wiped at her nose with the base of her thumb.

"Ahh. Yes, multiple questions requiring answers inside of five words from one Rose Tyler." He took a breath and shrugged as his hands found their way into his trouser pockets. "Do I pick one; or do I try to answer them all?"

She looked up at him through whipping blonde hair, too exhausted to try to pull it back from her face. "He didn't even say goodbye," she charged sadly. "Just dumped us here in the middle of nowhere, over a thousand miles away from home. We have no transport, nothing. What was he thinking ?" She looked to the sand and shook her head. "Was he even thinking? Was he really so eager to offload us that he just picked the first place that came into his head."

"Seemed as good a place as any, I suppose," The Doctor answered quietly. He looked around a moment and then expelled a breath and shook his head as he contemplated their current situation. "Brilliant," he finally huffed. "Just bloody brilliant he is."

Rose peered up into his face. "Would you have chosen this place; or would you have taken a second to look for another breach to set us down in?"

"Well," he answered quickly in a manner very typical when he decided to answer before actually having an answer in place. He paused in thought and then let out a breath. "If I was in his place, then probably here." He gave her an apologetic look. "Bad Wolf Bay is ingrained in my mind. I wouldn't think of anywhere else."

"Would _you_ have sent me away like this?"

He shook his head. "I don't think I could." He scratched the back of his head. "I'm more of the mind to just grab your hand and drag you back into the TARDIS as I take us off somewhere into the deepest part of the Time Vortex and not come out for the next decade or so." He cleared his throat. "But. But that's the human part of me talking. Thinking. Declaring war against the Timelord mentality I've cultured since I was a child. I'm free of that responsibility now, so I can say _to Hell with it_ and indulge a bit."

She raked her fingers through her fringe to hold the wildly blowing hair from her face. She had to look past her forearm and elbow to see him. "Responsibility," she managed flatly. "Responsibility, what, to be the almighty decider of fates and …" Rose paused at his chuckle. "Am I saying something amusing?"

He shook his head innocently. "I actually agree with you…"

"…Like that is such an unbelievable scenario," she challenged in frustration.

"I never said it was," he answered quickly. "I'm actually amused because I've finally realized that what everyone says about me is true. I truly can be a self righteous, arrogant, pompous ass." He let one brow fall and rubbed at the back of his head. "A know-it-all…"

"Who thinks he knows better than anyone else," Rose finished sharply for him. "There's no discussion, no _what do you think about this idea_, just _this is it, this is my decision and by Rassilon you're all going to agree with me. _Bloody Wanker._"_

His eyes were wide and sharp, almost comical. "That's. That's not nice, Rose."

"It's true."

"Didn't Jackie ever tell you that if you don't have something nice to say…"

"Oh, she can say what she wants, that one," Jackie called across the beach in response. She was part-way through a phone call to Pete, but was listening intently to the conversation between the pair. "And I agree with her. You've always had a bit of that holier-than-thou attitude about 'ya."

"Thanks, Jackie," he groaned out.

"You're welcome, Love. Now if you two are finished, maybe we can get ourselves a room for the night and something to eat? I'm dying for a cuppa after that trip."

"Go ahead Mum," Rose called back. "I reckon I'm gonna stay here a bit longer and try and wrap my head around some things if that's okay." She looked back to where the TARDIS once stood. Her voice softened to an almost imperceptible whisper. "Try to understand why this happened." She winced as confused tears rolled down her cheek. "I don't understand. Did I do something wrong?"

The Doctor stepped to her side and let his hand find hers once more. "I'm sorry, Rose. I'm so sorry."

"Why are _you _apologizing_? _He abandoned you too."

"Don't look at it as being abandoned, Rose," he said softly with a glance down at their hands. "You have a good life here. You've got your mother, your brother, father. You have everything you need."

She snorted lightly. "And what did he leave you with? What do you have?"

"You," he answered hopefully. "I do have you, yeah?"

She leaned against his side and tightened her grip on his hand. "You always have, Doctor." She felt him exhale in relief and closed her eyes. "But is it still fair for him to just leave you like this?"

"Well, depending on who answers that question you could get a dozen different responses." He took a breath and looked to the sand. "He'd say yes, that it was more than fair – given that I'd just committed genocide without a second thought, and therefore must be dangerous. If you ask his DoctorDonna, she have much the same response – and obviously she did given that she didn't argue, and who would against the _Doctor_ the almighty … Oh! Am I really talking that way about myself; uh, him?"

Rose couldn't even fake a snort. "I don't want to hear about what _they_ think. Tell me how _you_ feel about it."

"I don't even know where to start," he admitted softly. "One, I have you. It's the Doctor and Rose Tyler, the way it should be." He glanced down at her and gave a weak smile. "This, all in itself, is reason enough to be able to accept this outright." He then cast his eyes to the void left by the TARDIS and let out a longing sigh. "And then. _Well_. I was a Time Lord; a traveler through time and space. For centuries the TARDIS has been my home – my life – and now I've been stripped of all that. Now I'm not Time Lord, I don't have my TARDIS. I'm left here to live the slow life, to age and to die. To never reach out and touch the edge of the Universe again." A tear tracked down his cheek and he cleared his throat. "But," he hissed with fake enthusiasm. "It's a new adventure, I suppose. A new life. Maybe it's time."

"No it's not," she challenged softly. "And who is _he_ to decide your path like that?" She turned on him. "What makes _him_ the great decider of your fate? He's your family. You were born from _him_. If that makes him your father or your brother, I dunno, but it doesn't give him the right to decide that you're a liability to him that has to be dumped on someone else."

"Oh please don't tell me that's how you feel."

"What?"

"That I've just been dumped on you. A burden…"

"Hell no," she snapped as she grabbed hold of his lapels and rose up on her toes to be eye-to-eye with him. "If I was given the choice right here, right now, as to who I would choose to be with for the rest of my existence, it would be you." She wobbled a little on her toes and was grateful when he set his hands on her hips to steady her. "In the ten minutes we've been stranded here together, I've already determined that you are the greater man." She stepped back and waved her hand as she turned toward the water. "I dunno. It's probably cause you've got human in ya. The pompous Time Lord side of you's been kicked to the curb in favour of humanity or something like that."

He remained silent as he watched her kick at the water's edge.

Her aggression shifted to quiet sorrow. "You said you wouldn't do it, Doctor. You told me you wouldn't just dump me off when you were sick of me."

He winced. "Oh, Rose."

She turned to him, eyes flared with her anger resurfacing. "You told me that I could spend the rest of my life with you. I thought that I mattered to you – that what you and me had was special." She clenched her eyes tightly together. "But not only did you just go ahead and dump me, you dumped me in another bloody parallel with no hope at all of ever seeing you again. You left me without even looking back. No good bye, no _thanks for everything_, nothing. Everyone that came after me means more to you than I do."

"No, Rose. That's not true," He assured urgently. "You're everything." He grabbed at her arms to hold her steady in front of him. "You have no idea how much it destroyed me when I lost you." He released her and pressed his palm into his forehead in frustration. "Me! The Doctor! The great Oncoming Storm! The man who has entire species run in fear at the mention of his name … Destroyed by a pink and yellow human girl." His palm skidded down his face to drop at his side. "I'm not supposed to fall in love, Rose. It's not something I ever felt that I deserved; but it happened, and …" He stopped as he raised his hand to look at it as though sand fell through his fingers. "And when it slipped from my hand. When I lost you." He swallowed and snapped his eyes to hers. "All I wanted was to have you back. When I got your message, I couldn't get back to Earth fast enough."

"If that's so true," she challenged softly, "then why was I dumped here? Why wasn't I given the choice like everyone else was? Why did I have to get locked away from everything with no chance at all of …" She inhaled a shaking breath and looked at the overcast sky above her head. "This!" She swept her arm around the air in front of her. "This. This _brilliant_ decision of his defies what you're saying. All it says to me is that everyone else is _something_. I'm nothing. I'm not even worth being allowed to live in the parallel as the others – as _him_. I have to live here – in an unfamiliar world, with a life I don't even want – because _he_ thinks that's what has to happen."

His mouth opened and closed as he frantically thought of the words that could help. His head shook from side to side as his brows twisted in a frown. "Rose, I…"

She launched at him, her fists pounding at his chest. "How could you do this to me? After everything I went through to escape this place. All of my efforts to be free, to be back where I belong." Her eyes met his. "I saved your damn life, twice!" She punched at his shoulder. "I saved you from the Dalek Emperor. I risked my own life to save yours. I walked the space between worlds to make sure that Donna took the right turn to make sure that she was in the right place at the right time, so that your life could be saved and so that she could warn you that something was coming…" Her glare darkened. "You're _welcome_, by the way." She hissed with another punch at his shoulder. "And what do I get? I get sent home like a petulant child, like I was nothing more than the pretty face that graced the rooms of the TARDIS until something better came along." Her shoulders shook and she finally fell against him, sobbing as he drew his arms tightly around her shuddering form.

"I'm sorry. I'm so sorry." He held her yet tighter. "I'm so very sorry."

"I hate you," she managed softly.

"I love you," he returned sadly. "And you have my word that if there is any way at all for me to fix this, I will."

"Stop making promises," she breathed. "You can't ever keep them."

"I'm a new man, Rose."

"And apparently dangerous," she sighed softly. "So dangerous that you can't stay with the Doctor, but you're okay to stay with me. How's that supposed to make sense in all of this?"

He dared to chuckle against her hair. "You're right. In his mind I'm so dangerous that not even UNIT or Torchwood can be tasked with babysitting me. The brilliant Rose Tyler, however, she can tame this beast like no other." He drew himself back to look into her face. "And you say you're nothing special. Not even the almighty Oncoming Storm himself can handle me. _Well_, not that I can blame him, really. Next time I see him – if I see him – I'll probably punch him into his next regeneration." He looked thoughtful. "I do wonder if the aborted regeneration counts as one, and therefore how many he actually has left. Twelve is the standard package with Regenerations, and I'm number ten – well, number eleven, really, not that I really count nine, but I suppose that I have to in terms of regenerative considerations…" He paused at her amused look. "I was rambling, wasn't I?" He slumped. "I've got to work on that."

Rose rolled onto her toes and pressed a kiss against his mouth. "I've missed you."

"And you too, Rose Tyler," he practically cheered as he hugged and hauled her off the ground. His face was alight as he set her feet back on the ground, but it quickly fell to an expression of promise. "I know that you're unhappy with the cards you've been dealt, but I give you my word that we'll make this _brilliant_. The Doctor and Rose Tyler together again, living the slow life together. Just think. A Home. Carpets. Windows. Marriage, children, a mortgage." The last word was spoken with a considerable amount of pain. "Which means a job; an actual job. Doing what? Well that is a conundrum."

Rose gave a slight shrug. "I'm a millionaire's kid, a trust fund brat. You don't need a job _or_ a mortgage, I've got us more than covered." She dared smile playfully. "I'm your sugar-mama. And that had better not have been a proposal, Doctor."

He gave a wide, open mouth laugh. "In time _my_ Rose Tyler. In good time your proposal will be forthcoming." He turned sharply at Jackie Tyler calling to them as she walked back across the beach toward them. "Oh, here's trouble. She doesn't look happy."

"Can you hold her off a moment," Rose asked softly. "I just want to take a quick moment here."

"Of course." He cupped her cheek and gave her a smile. "Your wish is my command."

Her face lit up with a tongue in teeth smile of teasing. "The last time you said that to me we had reapers and paradoxes and…"

"Fun, Rose Tyler." His boyish smile was firmly in place. "All good fun. It all worked out in the end – as it always does." He tapped at her nose with the tip of his finger. "And you learned a very valuable lesson about playing with timelines, didn't you?"

She gave him a nod and turned back to look upon the indent of the TARDIS in the sand. Her calm hinted at fury as she strode forward and lowered herself to her knees in the dirt.

"You don't get to decide my fate," she hissed toward the open space that once held the TARDIS. "That right is mine, and mine alone." Her eyes fell to a lump in the sand, and she felt warmth wash across her cheeks and eyes.

_Bad Wolf._ The words sang across the breeze.

Her breath caught. "My story isn't over, is it?" She asked the breeze softly.

_Bad Wolf. _The words circled around her, tickled at her fingers, and drew them toward the coral nestled in the sand. _You are the Bad Wolf._

She gingerly curled her fingers around the lump of coral and exhaled a heated breath as the piece shimmered gold in her hand. Images flooded her mind and left her breathless on her knees as realization dawned and her future's path became apparent. Apparent, and terrifying.

"Why me," she moaned. "_He_ left me here. He doesn't want me, doesn't want _my_ help. Ask one of his other _saviours_ to do this."

A haunted and longing howl swept along the beach as the coral warmed inside her hand.

She inhaled a shaking breath as she saw through golden light what she was being told to do. The path would be long, but the task was clear. She had no choice but to answer.

Her voice was haunted as she shuddered out the words. "I am the Bad Wolf."

"Rose?"

His voice was gentle over her shoulder, and it shook her from her reverie. She sniffed wetly and turned her head to meet his eyes. "I'm fine."

His voice was soft. "Come here." He drew his hand around her waist and guided her to a stand. "Let get of this beach before the both of us go crazy."

"I thought we already were," she teased softly as she hid the piece of coral into the pocket of her jacket. She frowned as she looked into the distance. "Where's Mum?"

"She left for the hotel." His voice took on a far-away tone. "Had to finalize the reservations because we're going to be here for a couple of days."

"Okay." She pursed her lips and let out a breath. "Are we all staying in the same room?"

"Yes."

"Awkward."

"It could be."

"No, really. It will be." She slid her eyes up and leaned against him as they walked. "Do you think that you're going to be okay with this, Doctor? I mean, stuck with me and all that?"

"Being stuck with you _aint _so bad." He replied with a gentle knock of his shoulders against hers.

"Yeah?"

"Yes."


	2. Planet Douchebag

~Rose and the Doctor run into a little trouble, and discussions about unfortunate namings of planets and the growth of a TARDIS follow~

Rose Tyler's brow was taught and her breath haggard as she rounded a corner to press her back up against a wall in hiding. She could barely hear over the rush of blood and pounding of her heart in her ears, but she could certainly detect the excited boyish giggle of the man who fell against the wall beside her.

"How is it," she managed between pants, "that a completely benign, ordinary, normal daily activity morphs into something oh-so not normal or benign when you're involved?"

"Oh," he began on an extended breath through a smile. "You know."

She winced and grit her teeth at the thunder of footfalls bounding past their place in the alleyway. As the sound eked off to give her freedom to loudly expel her held breath, Rose shot a look at her companion. "Really, Doctor," she demanded shortly. "Really?"

"Oh yes," he threw back with a grin that challenged her dark glare. "Just what I needed to get the old synapses firing and the heart pumping." His grin stretched across both cheeks and he practically growled with pleasure as he looked down at their hands – joined the moment they began to run. "I've missed this!"

Rose's jaw dropped. "Missed? Doctor! You could have gotten us killed!"

He waved a dismissive hand at her words and shook his head. "It was unlikely that they would resort to capital action against us." His lips pursed a moment and he continued. "Bodily harm is a more likely scenario, but I really can't see them taking a murder charge over a…" he finally registered the absolute furious glare being levelled his way and had the courtesy to shrink just a little bit. "You're mad."

"Oh, ya think?"

He tilted his head to one side. "Oh dear. We're about to have our first argument, aren't we?"

Rose's eyes widened as she let out a cough of disbelief. "What?"

He released her hand and stuck his hands deep into his trouser pockets. He rolled back onto the heels of his Converse shoes. His expression was like that of a wounded child. "I was only trying to protect you, Rose."

"Protect me?" she scoffed incredulously. "Tell me how accusing them of being aliens from … from, where again?"

He moaned as he stretched his thumb and forefinger across his eyes. "The planet Douchebag in the constellation Wanker." His eyes shot up pleadingly. "And those words have _very_ different meanings to the inhabitants on that constellation than here on Earth."

She tapped her foot on the ground. "And just _which_ planet are we on right now?"

He rolled his eyes and then his head to the sky in frustration. "The leader of that group had the typical beady eyes, scaled lips, and rotund mid section that is typical of the Douchebag. As were the markings on his arm." He pointed to his own pinstripe-clad forearm. "The more markings one has on his arm, the higher their ranking in the hierarchy of the Douchebag, and depending upon which part of the planet that you're from, such marks can mean they are elevated to an almost regal status." He exhaled sharply and shifted his eyes to hers, immediately noting that she appeared to be biting her lips to shield her amusement. "Add to that the smell, which is particularly noxious if you aren't a Douche, but is apparently sweet torturous divinity to a female douchebag."

Her laugh burst through her lips, which sprayed a light mist of spittle in the Doctor's face. She struggled to inhale as the laugh drained her completely and refused to ebb, and found herself forced to seek assistance from the Doctor. He gave her a hearty slap on her back, which allowed her a deep inhale.

"How do you keep it together sometimes," she asked breathlessly. "I mean, come on, even _you_ have to find the humour in that."

The doctor shook his head with his serious expression lengthening his face. "I see nothing amusing about another civilization and the honour they feel about who they are and what they stand for." He gave an exasperated sigh. "You humans and your butchering of language!" He pointed an accusing finger at her. "You all have get in and change the meaning of words that have existed in benign forms for centuries, and turn it into something crude and insulting. Damn well confuse everyone else. Do you even know what the word _Douche_ actually means?

She ignored the rant. "What would a planet called Douchebag even be like?"

His expression quickly shifted from frustrated to wistful. "Oh. It's beautiful. The Planet Douchebag is a planet of peace and harmony, with beautiful golden sands along their coastlines, crystal clear waters with gentle lapping waves that roll so gently around your ankles. So warm. Oh, you'd love it, Rose. You really would." He suddenly cleared his throat and let his expression fall into a tight frown. "But, they're not particularly keen on the Timelords of Gallifrey and inter, uh…"

Rose wore an expression conveying interest and amusement. "Would that be _all_ Timelords of Gallifrey, or just one Timelord in particular?" He didn't need to answer. His suddenly guilty expression and tightly pursed lips gave her all the answers she needed.

But how could she _not_ press him further. "Well?"

He peeled off the wall and walked around the space of the alley way with one hand in his trouser pocket, and the other circling the air expressively ahead of him. "Well, okay. Me. Just me. I was investigating a report of a rogue band of douchebags preparing to infiltrate and take over the main royal compound on a neighbouring planet. The Bintarra clan had asked me to look into things and see if I could either put a stop to it all or negotiate a peaceful resolution."

"Obviously you didn't go with the peaceful option."

He shot her a wide-eyed look. "Oh yes, actually. We did manage to come up with quite the peaceful pact."

"But?"

He could read the amusement in her tone – read that she could probably imagine what was to follow.

He winced. "_Well_." The word was extended rather dramatically. "There was a young Douchebag lady who kind of took a fancy to me." He swallowed a gulp. "She was the daughter of the head of the rebellion, and well, let's just say that there are very specific rules on that planet regarding interspecies relations that I wasn't exactly aware of at the time."

"Oh you didn't," she moaned in amusement.

"I was in my sixth regeneration, I was young and stupid."

"And now have an entire planet of douchebags gunning for you." She huffed a laugh through a wide mouth. "Brilliant!"

"I'm thrilled that you're so amused by it," he deadpanned as he slid his hand into hers and tugged lightly in request for her to walk with him.

She leaned into him as they walked out of the alleyway and continued on their original path. Her voice was low and soft when she finally decided to clear the silence between them. "Can I ask you a question?"

He rolled his shoulder feigning annoyance. "Provided it isn't about Douchebags and whether or not I might have partaken in some of the local," he cleared his throat, "attractions."

Rose snorted, amused. "No. We can move beyond that for now." She licked at her lip. "Well, unless you want to tell me who does it better: Douchebags or Humans."

He moaned in discomfort. "How do you even compare? They have a completely _different _way of expressing their, uhm, desires than you Humans do." He looked thoughtful. "So, for that matter do Gallifreyans, come to mention it." He heard her peep of curiosity and shook his head. "It'd be impossible for me to effectively illustrate Gallifreyan lovemaking to you."

She stopped suddenly and tugged his hand to stop him. Curiosity abounded in her eyes. "I had never considered that you guys might do things a little differently to us. Is it. Does it feel the same, I mean as _good_ as with a human?"

"_Ohyes_. Yes. Very much so." He clutched her hand a little tighter and tugged on his ear with his free hand. "It's not quite as messy, sweaty, sticky, or as loud as it is with a Human, of course."

"Could you please say that with a little less disgust in your voice, Doctor," she managed with a shake of her head. "Lest you offend me and my messy, sticky, sweaty methods of love making."

"You forgot loud," he added. Then he chuckled through a wide toothy grin. "I never said that it was a lower-class method of expressing ones desire. There's something to be said about looking down at my beautiful pink and yellow human and seeing her all messed, panting, flushed and gasping for breath." He winked. "And to be put in the same class as your chosen deity. Well." He winked with a click of air from his cheek. "That's quite something."

"And you are quite good at it, just so you know, considering it's not quite what you're used to and all."

"_That's_ good to know." He kissed her on the temple as they walked. "So, what was your question?"

"My what?"

They stood at the corner waiting for the light to change, and it gave them a moment to face each other. He tucked her hair behind her ear. "You had a question, and I will gather that it wasn't really about who shags better: Gallifreyans or Humans."

"Oh yes," she said with a chuckle as she looked to the lights as they changed and tugged him across the road. "I had a question about the TARDIS."

"Ooh," he breathed through pursed lips. "A question I can actually enjoy and not get embarrassed about answering. Shoot."

"They are grown, yeah?"

He nodded. "Slow grown, actually. They can take a thousand years to take one from a piece of coral to a flyable machine." He smiled sadly. "My TARDIS was only a child, a century past her maturity. I was one of her first pilots."

Rose leaned against him as they walked, tightening her hold on his hand. "You miss her, don't you?"

He nodded sadly. "She was mine though ten regenerations, the only being I've had with me throughout my whole life."

"She loves you, you know that, yeah?"

He gave a light chuckle. "She didn't always love her thief, but I think she finally took to this old time traveler. Over 900 years we were together. We really only had each other when you think about it. Companions came and went, and life moved on just she and I." He looked down his shoulder at her. "Until you. She had a bit of a soft spot for you too, I believe, _Rose Tyler_," he teased.

Rose simply nodded in thought. "And so, if one was to accelerate the growth, in a parallel universe that the original ship couldn't draw power from, what level of power would be required." She looked up into his surprised face. "I mean, yeah, there are other kinds of intricate steps involved to accelerate its growth to make it flyable within a human lifetime, but you'd also need some kind of brilliant energy source to kick it all in, right?"

He stopped them in the middle of the street and held her arms lightly to ensure he had her full attention. "What are you talking about? It's not possible to accelerate the growth of a TARDIS in that short of a timeline. Even if it were a possibility and accelerated growth could be achieved, it would still take at least a half millennia to bring it to maturity."

"Well," she began with a tip of her ear toward her shoulder in a brilliantly innocent gesture. "I kind of, maybe, heard somewhere that if you can obtain a piece of TARDIS coral, then shatterfry the plasmic shell and modify the dimensional stabilizer to a foldback harmonic of, uhm, 36.3, then you can accelerate the growth by the power of 59 – 'bout three years or so in human time, if my math is right – and that's always up for debate." She bit on her thumbnail, trying hard not to make eye contact with the man in front of her whose breath was quickening and whose hold on her arms was tightening. "I was just wondering what power source would be required to sustain that level of growth."

She hiccupped as his mouth crashed down on hers and she felt him walk them both back toward a wall. His hands cupped either side of her face and he dipped at his knees to lessen his height and bring them to the same level. And then, as his hands dropped to draw her leg over his hip…

_"__Oh for God's sake – Get a room or something will ya!" _

It was Rose who tore away from the passionate embrace. She quickly stepped away from the Doctor and brushed herself down in embarrassment. "Yeah," she choked with a wave of her hand. "Sorry 'bout that." She looked back to the Doctor, who had one hand over his face and was in a side lean against the wall. Slowly he folded his arms across his chest, and she noted the still-darkened look in his eyes. "Just _what_ brought that on?"

"Just _when_ did you take up Gallifreyan language studies." He suddenly looked up toward the sky in confusion. "I didn't even know there _were_ Gallifreyean language studies."

"And as usual," she challenged with a point of her finger. "You're not making any sense."

He dropped his eyes and a single brow to regard her carefully. "You just spoke to me in perfect Gallifreyan, Rose."

"No I didn't."

His look morphed to one of concern. "Yes you did, Rose. You just offered me the solution to accelerated TARDIS growth in accent-perfect High Gallifreyan." He dipped his head lightly. "That's the language of the Timelord, Rose, not the native language of child of Gallifrey, but of the TARDIS and the Lords of Time, a language that can take centuries to master."

She cleared her throat uncomfortably. "And is apparently an aphrodisiac to former Timelords."

He nodded with wide eyes. "Well, yes. It is. To some degree." He took her hands in his. "I haven't heard my language spoken in such a long time, not without the electric buzz inside a recording."

"Oh," she breathed.

"And so," he practically sang. "To hear those words fall so perfectly from your lips Rose. I'm sorry, but it just pushed at something primal inside me, and I couldn't …" He stopped suddenly. "Hold on. How did you learn that," he queried carefully. "I know that I haven't taught you any, and I _am_ the only one in this world besides you that even knows that Gallifrey existed."

She thought off the cuff and shrugged. "You talk in your sleep?" She tapped at her temple. "You have that freaky mind tampering thing happening and are subliminally putting thoughts and equations in my head."

"Not buying it," he replied with a huff. "I don't subliminally do anything. In your face, I am, in case you've never noticed." he brought his face close to hers and scrutinized the set of her eyes. "But something's taken hold of your thoughts," he offered quietly as he put his glasses on to look deeper. "Something hidden within the mind of Rose Tyler that wants to be heard."

Her stomach took that opportunity to grumble.

The Doctor took a deep breath and snapped up quickly to a stand as he whipped off his glasses and deftly folded and pocketed them in a single movement. "Then again. Maybe I do talk in my sleep. Makes sense, _really_. There really isn't enough time in a human day to talk about everything I want to talk about. Losing my TARDIS has probably got the brain trying to work up some workable scenarios to make me feel better, or something." He put his arm over her shoulder and kissed atop her head. "It's nice to know that you've been listening, though."

"Yeah."

He cleared his throat and dropped his head to look through his brows as they continued on their path. "To answer your question, though. Nothing on this planet," he said with a sigh.

She chewed at her lip a moment, and then spoke. "What do you mean, nothing. There's plenty of power sources here that could be _Doctored_ to work, right?"

He shook his head. "The power of the TARDIS exceeds all of the power combined on this Earth," he said with a long exhale. "She flies through time and space not drive up the street to your mum's place." He blew out a breath and widened his eyes to consider it. "If I was still a Timelord I could probably do it, give a regeneration and that would be enough power to take her through the growth process until she could sustain her own power. Then again, new parallel universe, where no residual Gallifreyan energies exist, it's more than likely that you'd require a multiple regenerative blast from two or maybe up to three Timelords to make it happen."

She let out a long huff. "I see."

"And then, of course, you have the additional concern of whether the TARDIS _wants _to grow."

"Wants?"

"And then the Vortex? Where would you find any essence of the Vortex to power her?" He dropped his hand from her shoulder and took her hand in his. "TARDIS' are, _were_, grown on Gallifrey, which is where the gateway to the time Vortex existed. With no Gallifrey, no Time Lord power, and no Vortex, it would be impossible to cultivate a TARDIS." He finally registered her query and shrugged. "I've told you that the TARDIS was a sentient being."

She nodded lightly.

"Well, the decision to grow and become a fully functional TARDIS is theirs and theirs alone. It's not like you can go and tear a chunk of a TARDIS and expect to grow your own just like that." He sighed. "It simply doesn't work that way. You could end up with a very pretty coral tree in your back yard, but your chances of a functional TARDIS? Not likely."

"That's distressing."

His voice took on a slightly hopeful sound. "Are you perhaps asking because you knicked a bit of the TARDIS and hope to grow our own?"

She answered with an uncomfortable chuckle. "Like I had time to even consider that option. I didn't think that he was going to just leave us here like he did." She sighed. "I just want to learn all about you, that's all. Your life, your history, everything."

"Because I am so very fascinating," he teased softly.

"Very."

Silence fell upon them as they continued to walk along the footpath, hand in hand. The Doctor exuded awe and curiosity as he took in his surroundings. Rose gave the opposite impression. She chewed nervously on her fingernail and looked around with an almost timid gait. It wasn't until they reached their destination that her confidence seemed to return.

The doctor looked up at the glimmering tower lording above them, and couldn't quite help but remark on the heavy dark grey clouds that seemed to circle the spire at the very top. "Doom and gloom seems to surround this building," he warned dramatically. "Just what nefarious deeds is the Torchwood Academy of Pete's World up to then?"

Rose merely rolled her eyes. "Not as much as a Timelord on Planet Douchebag, according to rumour."

The Doctor slumped, and then groaned as he reluctantly followed her up the granite stairwell that led to the building from the street. "That's going to end up on a continual loop, so that I can be reminded of it for the rest of my life, isn't it?

"Oh Yes," Rose sang in response. "Oh yes."


	3. Energy Surge

~The Doctor gets a job at Torchwood~

The base of operations for Torchwood wasn't exactly what the Doctor had been expecting. He was so used to seeing military-style set ups or completely sterile white environments more suited to a hospital setting than a military one that he was stunned to find that the Torchwood Academy in Pete's World actually resembled more of a business office environment than anything.

There were colours. There were cubicles. There was art. There was even a water cooler set against the wall with people _blogging. _It seemed to be an environment of friendly faces full of welcoming smiles.

It was a stark difference to the dark doom and gloom that he saw outside. He would have to find some time to nose around a little bit to investigate just what was really lurking beyond the façade of bright cheer and happiness in the front office space.

"So what is it that you all do here again," he queried his companion softly as his eyes raked across the reception desk while Rose signed them both in.

She scrawled their names and time of entry in the log book with practiced autonomy. "The usual," she answered robotically. "Look for unidentifiable disturbances across the globe, examine and study recovered alien technology, work on dimension canons and jump technology." She took a breath. "Handle any hostile encounters that may – or may not – originate from Earth."

He pursed his lips thoughtfully. "You don't handle any hostile matters _personally_, do you?"

"As in myself specifically," she stated more than queried.

He answered with a nod as his brows set in a crease of concern.

She shrugged and drew a few files to her chest as she led them both deeper into the office. "I'm the one with the most experience, so yes." She palmed a large door to let them through into the next section. "It's not always completely successful, because of language barriers," she sighed, "and I really don't like playing charades, but we seem to manage well enough, you know, considering we don't have a direct line to the TARDIS and the Doctor like, oh, _Martha_?"

His hands were deep inside his trouser pockets, his shoulders set high, and he wore a self-satisfied grin across his cheeks. "Is someone a little _jealous_?"

"I'm going to pretend that you didn't just ask me that." She levelled him a playful glare. "Or, that you seem kind of happy about the idea."

His face bore the most satisfied of grins as he dipped his shoulder to lean his walk to a teasing spin in front of her. "Admit it, there's just a little bit of-" his words cut as he collided with something large and quite possibly human. In an attempt to maintain dignity, he straightened and turned quickly to apologise and found himself under the glare of a rather large, bald, snarling, angry looking security guard.

"Oh! Hello! " He managed quickly inside an awkward laugh and a huge smile. "Well. Aren't you … Big."

The security guard showed no amusement at the skinny little man beaming far too happily for a Monday morning. He let his eyes bore threateningly at the Doctor for just a moment, and then slid his eyes to Rose. "Ms. Tyler, you know we don't accept visitors beyond this point."

She looked over the edge of the file that she had lifted over her mouth to hide her amusement. Her smile was such that she opted not to remove the red file from her mouth. Her voice was slightly meek. "Dirk, this is the Doctor." She let the file drop from in front of her mouth, but swiftly replaced it upon watching the Doctor circle around to behind the large man and then mouth in disbelief: _Human? Noooo._ While he comically stretched his arms wide and then high to attempt to illustrate his point.

Rose quickly stooped forward and grabbed the Doctor's hand to tug him toward her. Her tone was amused when she finally managed to speak again. "He's starting with us today. He'll be working with Doctor Antonov on the seventh floor."

Dirk's untrusting eyes flicked from Rose to the Doctor, who maintained his grin as he held up the Identification tag pinned to the lapel of his blazer. "I didn't receive any notification of new employees."

Rose took a piece of paper from the top of her pile of folders and handed it across. "Authorization from the Director, Mr. Tyler. This assignment was decided over the weekend, and the Doctor was very eager to begin working for us."

"I wouldn't say _eager_." The Doctor corrected with a shrug. "More like coerced under threat."

She gave him a warning look. "I think you'll find that the paperwork is in order."

Dirk snatched the paper from her hand and made a show of reading the notification thoroughly. After a long thirty seconds he finally looked up and folded his gigantic arms across his chest. "I'll take the Doctor to the seventh floor."

"No," Rose replied quickly. "It's okay, I can do it."

"Negative," Dirk reacted sharply. "I've been instructed to tell you to go to your lab immediately on your arrival."

"You have a _lab_?" The Doctor questioned quietly in surprise.

Rose flicked her hand upward to ask for quiet. "Why? What's going on?"

"The system detected several massive energy surges over the weekend coming from your vault. As we can't get in there to take a look, we need you to go in and find the source of the surge."

The Doctor's attention was caught and the friendly smile quickly fell to curious concern. "What kind of energy surge are we talking about?"

Dirk shrugged. "What do you mean _what kind of energy surge_? Does it matter? A surge is a surge."

"Well," The Doctor began with a roll onto the heels of his Converse shoes as he leaned his body slightly forward. "It could be one of several potential sources of energy couldn't it? Atomic, fusion, geothermal, biomass, nuclear, gas, kinetic, chemical, gravitational – one of my favourites." He gave Rose a wink. "Solar. Oh, Solar energy is fascinating. I once gauged the energy output of a solar flare in the Andrakus galaxy. The energy release maxed out at eight times fifteen to the power of tweny-six joules. That's an _astonishing_ amount of raw power."

Dirk huffed in annoyance. "I don't know. Energy is energy and too much of it is bad. That's all I know."

The Doctor shook his head. "The inherent danger of this or any surge largely depends on what the source is, and if you intend on sending in _my_ Rose Tyler to investigate, then I think that knowing exactly _what_ caused the surge is pretty damn important, don't you?"

Rose touched his arm. "It's okay, Doctor. I think I know what it is."

"But can you be sure," he argued lightly. "If it was enough to set off the alarms, then the residual energy wavelengths could be dangerous."

"I'll be fine," she assured.

"But…"

Rose smiled as she slumped. "I'm sure that I've survived worse _residual_ _energies_ than anything that could come from my vault," she countered. "I travelled with you for two years, didn't I?"

"And just _what_ are you implying?"

"I'm implying," she answered as she rolled up on to her toes to press a kiss against the side of his mouth. "That you trust me and go with Dirk here to meet your new lab partner."

He looked at her for a long time with a stern look on his face. Finally the expression broke and he broke out into a smile. "Well. Okay then. Dirk lead the way," he belted out with a clap of his hands. "Lead me to the man whose intelligence Rose assures me could very well put my own vast _vast _amount knowledge to the test." He turned and walked backwards as pointed a finger past his nose at her. "Impossible, I assure you."

Rose watched them leave and lightly rolled her feet in a light bounce. "See ya," she said very quickly with a wiggle of her fingers in a wave.

Once she saw the elevator doors close to take both men from sight, Rose turned and sprinted to the stairwell and toward her office.

~~oooOOOooo~~

A run down the stairs from the lobby to sub-level 3 had Rose in a pant by the time she skidded into the doorway. She raked her fingernails through her hair as she hurriedly tapped in her access code for the lab.

Her first try was a fail, and she cursed as she tried a second time. "Come on."

A white-gloved hand moved into her field of vision and slowly – accurately – entered the entry code. "I take it you've been informed of the energy fluctuations over the weekend?"

Rose nodded toward her assistant, a young man with long tasseled sandy-brown hair, thick horn-rimmed glasses and a white lab coat. "Spencer, just what kind of fluctuations are we talking about here?" She pushed open the door and burst into her private office in the laboratory. "Dirk told me there were massive surges all weekend."

Spencer followed her through the doorway and looked down to the data on a worn out, old school, wooden clipboard. "Surges and drains on what I could term a _massive_ scale."

"Not good," she whispered as she swept her mouse across her desk to wake her computer.

Spencer eyeballed the door to her vault. "Just what do you have in there, Rose?"

"Classified."

"Well it might not be so classified if this trend continues," he warned. He placed the clipboard in front of her as she swiftly entered her password to unlock the computer. "Look at the data. Starting Saturday evening, there were several heavy drains on the grid, followed by massive surges of energy being released back into the system." He poked his finger on a specific set of figures. "It peaked yesterday afternoon at four. There was a full drain on the main power, lasting long enough for emergency power to have to kick in. The surge that brought it back online blew all the lighting in the west offices on the third to sixth floor, and damaged the motors on every elevator on the west side. Facilities is _pissed!_"

Rose's eyes were wide as she looked over the data. She couldn't make much sense of it at all. "But it's stopped surging now, yeah?"

"Stable for seventeen hours and holding."

Rose pressed her lips together and nodded. She looked through some information on her monitor and winced. "This was a bad idea," she breathed. "Bad. Bad. Bad. What was I thinking?"

Spencer sat on the edge of her desk and pushed his glasses up his nose as he tried to look over at her screen. He wasn't exactly surprised to see that she quickly used the alt+tab maneuver to hide the information from him. "Rose. What are you up to, Love?"

"Nothing."

"We both know that isn't true."

She challenged him in a look. "And we both know that I won't tell you, so don't ask."

Spencer rolled his eyes and shrugged. "Then just make sure that you get a handle on it. Marcus is sniffing around, and you know if he thinks for a second you've got something prime for him to take over, he will. You know that he thinks that you're a moron who's only on staff because your dad's a Director here."

She curled a lip. "Marcus can kiss my butt." She flicked a pencil across the desk and then slouched in her seat with the pout of a little girl. "I don't trust that dirtbag as far as I can throw him. Too sleazy and conniving to be working in a place like this. I'll lay bets that idiot is selling off secrets on the black market."

Spencer gave a laugh. "You are too suspicious."

"We have to be." She sat up a little higher in the chair and looked to the doorway to her vault over the top of her monitor. "He can never, ever, ever, get his hands on what I'm working on right now." She licked at her lip and looked to her assistant. "So please. Please stave him off as much as possible."

"I'll do my best." Suddenly he grinned. "So I heard a rumour that you finally convinced your boyfriend to come work for us." He waggled his brows. "The _Doctor_. Tell me that he's going to be in this lab. Please tell me he is. I'll ignore all the PDA and chica bow wow you guys want to get up to in here just for the chance to be able to crawl inside his head and …" At the shake of her head, Spencer slouched. "Really? So. Which is the lucky department that got the former Timelord working for them?"

She smirked. ""He's with Antonov."

Spencer shook his head. "Well. There goes that division," he mused. "There'll be no work getting done. We'll just have two grown men seated in opposite corners of their office sulking because they aren't the smartest one in the room." He pulled himself up and pressed his hands onto the desktop to push himself to a stand. "I've gotto go. Alpha Team brought in something from Cardiff that they want me to take a look at." He held his hands apart a considerable distance. "Big. Blue. Pretty. Sharp."

Rose smiled. "Then go. I'll be okay here. I'll look into what might have caused the surge and get back to you."

He winked and gave a lazy salute of good bye before padding out of the room to leave Rose by herself.

Rose didn't move much. The only actual movement made was to shift her eyes to the door to her vault. She stared at it quietly for a moment. Considered her options. Wondered just what was going through her mind to think that she could possibly be in any way properly equipped to take on the task given to her … _by a piece of coral?_

Her phone buzzed against her hip and she quickly snapped it out of her pocket and tossed it on the desk. A message from the Doctor asking her to explain the planetary origin of this person who was obviously too intelligent to be a mere _ape_ human displayed atop the lock screen. She should have smiled, but she didn't. She couldn't.

"Ohhh Doctor," she sighed along a whisper. "What have I gotten myself into here? I'm in way over my head."

Her phone buzzed to give a second notification for the same message, and Rose shook herself. She inhaled a deep breath and held onto it as she slowly drew herself to a stand.

"No sense sitting around here _wonderin'," _she muttered to herself as she distractedly typed "LOL" in response to the Doctor's text and dropped the phone back on her desk. "Time for answers. Or more questions."

She tapped her access code into the touch-pad to her vault and slowly slipped into the room. She kept her back against the wall as the door closed and locked behind her. She blinked to adjust her sight against the glow from the rear of the darkened room.

"I'm here," she offered quietly around a hard swallow. "Miss me?"


	4. Remembering

~~oooOOOooo~~

There was a light yet unmoving chill in the room. It was cool enough that Rose folded her arms across her chest in a hold aimed to give herself some warmth. She kept her back on the wall and crossed her legs at the ankles, planting her grounded foot hard to press back against the metal wall.

"I would have thought that you were more of a tropical weather kind of gal," she muttered into the darkness ahead of her.

The back of the room suddenly lit up and a warm rush of air blasted by her. Rose inhaled a shocked breath with a wide open mouth and dropped her arms from her chest to press back against the wall.

"Oh, my," She stammered timidly. "You've _grown_ since Friday!"

When Rose had last checked on the growing TARDIS, it was a mere golden stalk no longer than an injured man's walking cane. Now, the glowing golden tree bore several magnificent branches that extended outward, reaching for the very edges of the room.

She ignored the urging inside her head to step forward to move closer to the tree and remained solid in her stance. "You've been a naughty girl." She managed to swallow. "You've been getting into the power grids and fooling around. If you don't start to behave, then they'll force me to reveal you. They'll take you away. They'll destroy you. They could…" She gulped hard. "They could even use you for really _really _bad things."

The light of the coral tree ahead of her pulsed gently.

Rose slid her hand into her hair and held her fringe from her face. With a sigh she slid her back down the wall to fall into a seat, her knees up against her chest. "I spoke with the Doctor about how we could possibly power you while you grow."

The lights pulsed deep and annoyed.

Rose wrapped one arm around her knees and let the other hand lift upward with her shrug. "Oh. I didn't tell him about _you_, if that's what you're worried about." She pulled her other arm around her legs and dropped her chin into her knees. "He'd be here if I did." She gave a small chuckle as the pulsing light dimmed to a steady glow. "You know that Timelord brain of his. He'd rush in here wanting to analyze and work out every conceivable option to be flying with you as soon as possible." She winked. "I'm hiding you from him not just because you told me to, but for my own selfish reasons. I'd lose him to ya – and I'm not ready to give him up just yet." She tipped her head to one side and smiled as she relaxed enough to let her arms fall away from her legs and to slouch a little against the wall. "It's only been a month. Check in with me in another twelve, I might have changed my mind."

Rose felt amusement swirl around her. The light feeling in her chest very quickly morphed into one of question, and she cast a solid gaze at the coral tree.

"He, I mean the Doctor, says that finding enough power to make sure you grow into something amazing and beautiful is going to be impossible." She sighed. "There's not enough available energy here to sustain ... _well_." She waved her hand at the tree. "Well to keep you growing like _that_."

She pointed her finger at it. "And you need to stop connecting into the grid. If you need something, then you need to find a way to let me know. I'll try to find it for you."

She slouched again. "But." Her head dropped and she looked downward. "But will it be enough? I mean, I have access to some pretty nifty stuff that has some awesome power, but it'd be like a short hit of cocaine or heroin or something like that. Enough for a fast hit, but not enough to keep you going."

She bit on her nail. "And he also brought up a really good point. What about the Vortex power?" She looked back to the tree and let her arms dramatically rise and circle in the air. "We're in a whole new universe. There is no time travel Vortex power here. None!" She felt the burn of tears in the corner of her eyes. "And I don't know how to help. I don't know what to do!"

She let herself inhale shaking breaths to attempt to calm herself. "Why did you come to me for this?" She tapped the side of her head. "There's no brains in here. Not enough for what you need, anyway. Let me tell the Doctor. Let him do this. You'll just end up dying if you put your trust in me."

With her words she felt a sudden sink pull inside her chest. It was enough pressure to make her head roll backward and her mouth gape in an airless gasp. The weight in her chest held a moment before it released sharply from her chest inside a glimmering, golden breath that drew all of the air from her lungs. She gasped a deep inhale and fell forward onto her hands and knees as she watched the golden breath lengthen out and swim through the air toward the waiting coral limbs of the tree.

"What is _that_?" she queried in a quiet voice shielded by fear. She stood hurriedly, but fell back to her hands and knees just as quickly. Her head spun. She shook it to try and shake the clouds from her mind. She looked through her fringe at the tree. "What did you just do to me?"

Her chest gave another painful contraction. Again, it held, then released in another glimmering cough that was captured by the coral tree.

Her arms crawled her forward as she begged to know what was happening; why the coral was taking from her what she could only guess was the very energy of life.

"Please stop," she begged lightly through a haunted whisper as her eyes and cheeks began to burn. "I only have one life, please don't take it all from me. Don't. I can't let you."

Her vision swam through a golden hue as she valiantly tried to stand once more. She swayed on her feet as she staggered a step toward the tree. Her eyes glowed golden as images, voices and words swirled and played inside her mind. Images and words so random, fleeting by so quickly that she couldn't make sense of them.

_Time. Wolf. Void. Doctor. Vortex. TARDIS. Bad Wolf. Dalek. Song. Singing. Burn. Burn._

The jumble of words and images in her head swirled. They swirled and melded together. There was no coherence. There was no sense. It was loud. Loud and frightening. There was pain inside her head. Blinding, burning pain. _The Sun and Moon, why do they hurt?_

Rose squeezed her eyes shut and let out a screech as she clutched painfully at her hair and begged for release from the cacophony of noise in her head. She screamed for it to stop.

"Enough!"

All of the sounds and imagery around her stopped immediately. She panted and slowly released the tight pressure against her closed eyes. Her frown relaxed, and her breaths lengthened slowly. Rose listened. She listened through the silence before she would allow her eyes to open once more. A far reaching sound of song ghosted deep inside the back of her mind.

And her eyes flashed open. There was a blinding flash of brilliant golden light that drew a deep breath into her lungs, but it quickly fell away. It faded to walk her into a dim, static holographic room of a space station. Images of Daleks, cables, wires, and consoles shimmered into view. She took little notice, however. Her gaze fell gently to a man in leather and denim, with big ears, a sharp nose, and closely cropped hair as he stumbled soundlessly to the ground only a few feet ahead of her.

Her Doctor.

There was panic in his eyes as he spoke to her. His words formed a terrified question as she gently looked upon him with adoring eyes. Her response fell from her tear-stained lips.

_"__I looked into the TARDIS and the TARDIS looked into me."_

Through the haunted singing circling in her mind she could see the Doctor's terrified, crumpled form before her. She had come to save him, but her presence was destroying him right in front of her. She could see his mouth begging the words, but she couldn't hear them.

_"__I am the Bad Wolf," she chanted with sorrow. "I create myself."_

_"__I take the words. I scatter them in time and Space. A message to lead myself here."_

The Doctor begged now. He begged with words now silenced in time.

_"__I want you safe, my Doctor. Protected from the false God."_

There was a desperate look in the piercing blue eyes of her Doctor as he seemed to finally understand why she had risked herself for him. There was a flicker of realization, a flare inside his eyes. And then there was terror. Terror and desperation inside the man she believed had no fears. The devastation inside his eyes destroyed her.

Rose tried to break her trance. She covered her ears with her hands and closed her eyes tight as she shook her head and staggered backward.

"No. No! I don't want to see anymore." Her own detached voice continued to sing ethereally around her despite her protests.

_"__I can see the whole of time and space. Every single atom of your existence. And I divide them. Everything must come to death. All things. Everything dies. The Time War ends"_

"No more!"

_"__I can control it all. The Sun and the Moon. The day and night. But why do they hurt?"_

"Stop!"

_"__I can see everything. All that is. All that was. All that will be."_

"What is that even supposed to mean? I don't even know what that all means!" Tears streamed down her cheeks as her body crumpled into itself. "Why are you showing me this?"

Rose stomped her foot on the ground and dropped her hands from her ears. She let her eyes open and staggered backward to find herself face to face with the shimmering illusion of her first Doctor.

"C'mere," he said softly as he held out his arms to hold her. "I think you need a Doctor."

She gasped as his ghost took hold of her hands and dipped his face forward to kiss her. Her eyes looked wide into his as the Doctor pressed his mouth against hers and drew the power of time and space from her.

And then he was gone.

"Doctor!"

She dragged her forearm along her tear soaked eyes as she staggered backward. The Game Station around her tapered out to black nothingness, and she was left, alone, in the dark vault, with the only sounds her whimpering sobs and her fast racing heart beat.

"Is that what happened? Is that _really_ how it all went down?" She asked softly. "Is that what the Doctor meant when he said he absorbed the Time Vortex? He absorbed it from me?"

She waited for an answer she knew wouldn't come. The coral tree maintained a steady glow from the back of the vault.

Her hand rose slowly to her mouth. "Oh my God," she breathed finally as her fingers touched at her lips. "It's my fault. He died, regenerated, because of me." She paced slowly. "I went back to save him. I went back so that he could live, and he ended up dying anyway."

Frustration leapt into her chest. "Why would he go and do something so bloody stupid? We won. He was safe! He didn't have to do that." She immediately turned and ran to the door. "I have to find him. I have to – " she hiccupped and pressed her hands into the door ahead of her. She let her head drop low in the void between her arms. "And tell him _what? _What do I even say to something like that?" She looked to the coral. "I was never supposed to remember, was I?"

Rose spun in place and pressed her back against the wall. For the second time since entering the vault, she let herself slide down into a crumpled heap on the floor; head buried in her knees. "I really didn't need to be shown that."

A grunt, and then a curt Northern accent cut through the air. "Look at you, Rose Tyler, all that fussin'."

Her whole body jumped with spasm in shock and fright. Her arms flailed to one side and her head rose quickly from her knees. "What?"

Blue eyes met hers, and the Doctor in leather crouched into a squat in front of her. "Don't mind me," he chirped as he shifted in his squat to take a seat on the floor beside her. "And don't freak out. I'm not a figment of your imagination…"

She looked him up and down. "So what, you're a ghost?"

He shook his head. "No. Not a ghost." He frowned. "Well, not in the whole spirit displaced from a dead body thing anyway, which, knowing us, would probably end up being a gaseous form of an alien race ready to kill and maim in the name of survival, am I right?"

She looked at him tiredly, but said nothing.

He sighed as he looked down at his broad hands and rolled them as though visually assessing their appearance. "I'm an interface, or projection, from her." He jutted his chin toward the coral tree, but kept his eyes on his hands. "And it's taking a lot of energy to do this, so I need you to stop crying and start listening."

Rose wiped at her eyes. She let a couple of shaking breaths calm her and then nodded. "Okay. I'm listenin'."

He shifted his eyes to meet hers. "Are you sure?"

"I'm sure."

The image of her first doctor rolled his head on the wall to look at her properly. "Good. Because _this_," he remarked with a gesture to indicate her crumpled form. "Is not how I've ever seen my Rose Tyler, and not how I ever want to see her."

"Then don't show me how I killed my Doctor, and I won't." She folded her arms in childish annoyance across her chest. "Why would you even do that? What was the purpose of showing me _that_?"

He rolled his eyes and lifted one side of his lip in self chiding. "Unfortunately, what I needed you to see, and what happened with the Doctor are simultaneous events in time. I can't shield one while I show you the other."

"You could _edit_," she challenged lightly.

"The director called in sick," he intoned blandly.

She sighed as she pressed her fingers against her forehead and closed her eyes. "Tell me, then. What did I need to see, because right now I can't see past being responsible for his regeneration."

He moved his hand to take hold of hers and let out an annoyed grunt when his hand passed straight through hers. "You just told me that the Doctor told you there were no energies of the time vortex in this universe to allow me to grow back into a fully functioning time machine."

Rose nodded from behind her hand. "Yes."

"Well the Doctor was wrong."

She snorted loudly and pulled her hand from her face. There was a smile tugging at the very edges of her lips. "Oh. I _dare_ you to tell him that." She rolled her head on the wall to look at him and gasped at the proximity of his face to hers. She scuffled a couple of inches back. "In what way was he wrong?"

The Doctor's image smiled. "There _is_ vortex power here." He rolled his head to look at the coral growing at the back of the room. "A small amount, just a glimmer, but I can make that power grow." He sighed. "That is, if you'll let me."

Rose seemed to liven up with excitement. "Really? There's usable vortex power? Here?" She held a wide grin across her cheeks. "If it's available, then yes. Tell me where it is and I'll get it for you."

He pursed his lips and deliberately kept his eyes from hers. "That's where it gets a little complicated. It's not as easy as you think it is."

Rose was eager. "I've done _difficult_ more times that I can count. Tell me how I can get it for you."

His image shuddered in and out of focus. "It's in _you_, Rose Tyler," he said before a full exhale. "The power is inside you. Oh so small and precious." He looked at her. "Such a small amount hidden in the very deepest part of your mind." He paused with a smile. "But before I can draw it out again, I need to strengthen it."

She swallowed hard. "It's what and where, and how, and who, and.. _what?"_

He winced at the fear in her voice. "Bad Wolf," he answered softly, his Northern accent vanishing with each spoken word until it became more an ethereal harmony than a single voice. "was the very essence of time itself. A being of light with the power to control life, and death. To see all of time, space; all of what is, what was, what will be."

Her eyes widened. "I was all that?"

He nodded slowly and looked down to the ground between his feet. "We were, but it was too much. I gave you all of that power, but it was too much for a human mind and body to bear."

She swallowed hard, but said nothing.

He looked back up. "You could only hold that power for a very limited time before it burned you completely. We had just enough time for you to save our Doctor and to defeat the Dalek emperor."

"And so he took it from me," she finished softly. "Which is why he absorbed the Time Vortex energy. He did it to save my life."

"To save _our _lives," he whispered sadly.

Her whole body tensed at the words. "What?"

The image flickered in and out in front of her, and in a moment was standing ahead of the coral tree. "For a moment in time, you and I were one. Two beings that came together because of their love for one man." He smiled. "I was a dead machine without the Time Vortex. By taking the power from you and returning it to the TARDIS, he saved us both."

"That," Rose remarked with wide eyes, "is quite something."

The Doctor's voice returned. "And so this is how we get to this point."

Rose shuddered at the switch from a soft, almost feminine tone to a decidedly masculine, heavily accented voice. "Okay?"

He soundlessly clapped his hands together. "In order for me to come to life and have our Doctor and Rose Tyler answer Time's call, we have some work ahead of us."

"Answer _Time's_ call?" Her eyes were wide. "Oh. Okay. So you're not just here to let us go have fun traipsing around time and space again. No, of course not. It's never that simple is it?"

"Life would be no fun if things were simple, now, would it." His voice turned serious. "I'm not going to lie to you, Rose. This won't be easy. It won't be without pain and a bit of struggle."

She whimpered dramatically. "Go on."

"We need to reignite the dormant Vortex power that's still inside you. I can't survive without it." He tipped his head apologetically to her. "Fortunately, though, we've got time to do this slowly and thereby safely."

"So you're saying that we light a little bit. I give it to you. A little bit more. I give it to you? You know, keep the levels low enough that I won't crash and burn." Her tone was extremely hopeful, but she knew better. All she needed was to see the expression on his face to know it wouldn't be in any way _that _simple. "Oh. God."

"I'll protect you as much as I can." He looked back at the tree. "I've obtained enough power now to be able to keep the energy as dormant as possible until we need to make the final energy transfer."

"And then what will happen to me?" There was no escaping the fear in her voice.

The image smiled. "Oh. My Wolf. I hold the very essence of time itself. You've seen my power..."

"It almost killed me," she challenged. "What if we can't control it and it finishes that job this time around?"

"You have the love of both a TARDIS and a Timelord who will stop at nothing to make sure that doesn't happen."

She shook her head. "My Timelord isn't a Timelord anymore."

The image smiled a coy grin. "Isn't he?"

Rose patted at her chest. "One heart. Not a Timelord."

"Well. It's not the first time he's been in this predicament." The image shrugged and raised an arrogant brow. "Remember two things, Rose Tyler. One. Your Doctor was born on the TARDIS floor surrounded by vortex and regenerative powers. Two. There has never been a human/Timelord Meta-Crisis."

"Which means what, exactly?"

The image smiled. "You're a smart girl…"

Rose rolled her eyes. "Not right now, I'm not," she challenged. "You're not making any sense."

The image dropped his head with a slight shake. "In time." He raised his head again. "In good time that'll make sense. But for now, I do have to ask you a final question before we can commence."

"What's that?"

"Do you consent?"

Rose's brows knitted together tightly on her brow. "Consent to what?"

"I need access to your mind, Rose."

Rose sighed as her face contorted to a wince. "I was worried you'd say that." She nodded lightly and took a deep breath. "But. No poking around. You go in, look for your Vortex thingie, and get out, okay?" she rubbed at her brows. "The last thing I need is you getting stroppy one day and putting my most embarrassing thoughts on any monitor you can get your little fingers in to." She pointed at the image. "And don't tell me that a TARDIS can't get stroppy. You're a female. All females have it in them."

The image chuckled. "I make that vow to you, then Rose. No jiggery-pokery inside your brain."

"Good," Rose mattered in a very self-satisfied manner. "Then I consent. Do what you need to, just don't kill me."

The image approached her swiftly. It swelled with golden amber energy to completely engulf her tiny form.

~~oooOOOooo~~

Rose stirred lightly on the darkened vault floor. Her mouth was dry and there was an ache in the very back of her head. She moved gingerly to her knees and rocked back onto her ankles.

"Did someone get the number of that lorry?" She let out a whistle and shook her head a little in an attempt to shake off the clouds and the ache inside her mind. She moaned as she pressed the butts of her hands against her eyes to try to relieve some of the pressure. "Where the Hell am I?" She blinked into the darkness and rolled her eyes at herself. "Vault? Okay."

_"__Rose, are you in there?_

Her attention shot to the intercom panel on the door and to the voice of her assistant on the other side. A quick look to the digital clock on the wall said it was midafternoon, and her eyes widened quickly. There was no way she had been in there all day.

_"__Rose, are you okay? Do you need some help?"_

Rose quickly skipped toward the intercom and frowned as she pressed the communication button. "Yeah, yeah. I'm good, Spencer. Sorry. I got caught up and forgot about the time." She looked back over her shoulder and gasped a little at the sight toward the back of the vault. "Just give me a minute here to finish up, be out shortly."

She released the button and ignored any response as she strode toward the lightly glowing tree at the back of the room. The sight of the growing coral tree made her smile widely. "Wow," she breathed softly. "Look at you." She walked around the crown of branches and withheld a squeal of excitement. "Oh. You've grown so much since Friday!"

She stood still for a moment as a kiss of something moved through her mind. Blue eyes, Leather, and brilliant light. She rubbed at the centre of her brow and shook her head. "Must've been dreaming," she muttered to herself. "Time to ease up a bit on the tea."

She punched in her access code to open the vault door and passed a look back at the coral tree. "Behave, girl. See you tomorrow – maybe I'll have some answers about how to get you through this whole fast growing thing."


	5. Anniversary

A/N: Before we get into this chapter a little note. I did attempt to do some research on a few things to attempt to make at least part of this technically accurate. Unfortunately, the most awesome DW fanbase aren't in total agreement on a few if the specific items I was looking at/for - namely Gallifreyan spoken language and how Gallifreyans, ya know, do it. :) So I took some literary license and made my own stuff up. Feel free to let me know if I am in error.

Secondly. REVIEWS! Wow. Thanks. I'm not typically a review hound, but when I get them, yeah, I get that warm fuzzy squeally feeling. So thank you. It lets me know that I'm doing maybe okay here.

And, now. To the story.

~~~oooOOOooo~~~

Six months into his regeneration _of sorts_ into a _smarter than most_ Homo Sapien Sapien – AKA human – and the Doctor had a rather long catalogue of the differences between Gallifreyan and Human biology, physiology, chemistry, reactivity, hunger, wants, needs, desires, hunger, pain…

_Wants, needs, desires. Oh yes!_

One thing that was being made perfectly clear in the Timelord mind of this hybrid human, was that the Homo Sapien Sapien was fueled by one thing, and pretty much one thing only: Desire. More specifically than that broad stroked term: Desire for sex. Males and females alike seem to be driven on this one very specific desire, and it was inescapable. Everywhere the Doctor looked he has bombarded by subliminal – and some not so subliminal – messages. Magazines, TV, Billboards, Radio… By Rassilon, even half of the buildings seemed to have been designed with male genitalia in mind.

Not that he could really fault the driving force behind the human race. It _was_ something else.

A Gallifreyan couple could complete a love-making cycle in roughly five minutes or so and be sated for a long while.

These humans? _Well_, they could very well span their activities over the course of an Earth night and still want for more when it was all over.

_Now_. That was in no way to say that the intimacy between a couple from Gallifrey was any less fulfilling than that of an Earthen couple. Oh no. Not less at all. The act itself was far more powerful and exquisite than that of the human kind. It just lacked the absolute starving need for that explosive union that humans possessed. That driving hunger that could carry through hours, building and building, desperate for that final connection and the inevitable earth shattering climax.

And not to forget, of course, it was just plain fun!

Which is what led the Doctor to this much undignified current predicament: In the driver's seat of an expensive, luxury Lincoln SUV, parked in front of his home, with an impossibly gorgeous blonde woman straddling his lap and snogging him into another dimension.

Rose had been at him all day. Their _six-month anniversary_ she called it. Six months to the day since being left on Bad Wolf Bay by the fully Timelord Doctor and his partly Timelord companion. Apparently such dates were important to human females and it seemed that their male counterpart was expected to flawlessly align with this newly heightened sexual cycle.

The Doctor wasn't about to scratch his head in bewilderment as to just what force was supposed to magically align their desires. Truth be told, he honestly didn't need a specific reason to match her current mood. He was happy to simply play along and reap the benefits of this _anniversary_ and wait for the next one to come along to play the game all over again.

And _what_ a game it was!

It started upon waking. Rose teasingly woke the sleepy Doctor with her soft hands threaded up underneath the flannel top of his jimjams. Those artful hands and exquisitely manicured fingernails traced every. Single. Curve and Crevice of his chest, and drew excruciatingly blissful lines right across the line of his low-slung pajama pants.

Because of the basic human biology _north_ of the anatomy equator, and its _state_ upon waking, this meant that he was pretty much good for any game play that her actions suggested, and so he immediately searched out her mouth to draw her into a long and passionate early morning kiss.

Rose had immediately pulled back from him with a giggle and a comment suggesting he had morning breath, and then promptly leapt out of bed and left the room, wearing nothing but a light pink and lacy panty and camisole set.

All he could do was sprawl out on his back across the entirety of their bed and let out a long and disappointed moan, clench his eyes tightly shut and try to shut off any illicit thoughts try to will himself into a state much more appropriate to crawl out of bed, get ready and leave the house in.

As the day lingered on, it only became more torturous. Rose played her game of texting him as many _definitely not safe for work_ texts as possible. He was hugely appreciative of the fact that his fellow lab-partner barely spoke a word of the Queen's English, because that damn phone of his kept splashing her messages across the lock screen at the worst possible times.

And again, this was more to the part of the reason that the Doctor was here, in this moment, in a position of having to decide if the entire neighbourhood would bear witness to their anniversary celebration, or if he actually had any will left in him to make it to their bedroom, or at the very least beyond their front door.

Fortunately, Rose made that decision on his behalf as she tore her mouth from his and slid awkwardly off his knee out of the vehicle. "C'mon Doctor," she purred thickly as she took hold of his tie to coax him out of the vehicle. "Let's get inside."

The Doctor knew he should make at least half an effort to tuck his shirt back into his trousers, tighten up his tie and straighten his blazer, to save at least a little dignity, but couldn't honestly see the point in it. It would be approximately thirty-six seconds until they were beyond the front door and he'd be shrugging himself out of all of it anyway.

Following the urging tug of his tie, the Doctor allowed himself to be led to their front door, which was about as far as he got before he answered that urge and spun Rose in place to press her against the lacquered wood to claim her mouth with his once more.

Rose giggled under his mouth. "We really should get inside, Doctor."

He took hold of the very softest part of her ass and hauled her up against him. "It's taking too long," he growled. "Here's good."

She pressed her hand against his chest to push him away from her. Her voice was a husky giggle. "But it'll be better upstairs." She licked at her lip and lowered her voice to a whisper as she watched his expression darken and his hand move to seat itself on the door behind her head. "I've got a surprise for you."

This piqued his interest, and his brow shot up high. "Oh, really? And just what does my Rose Tyler have in store for the Doctor this evening?"

She winked as the door clicked to allow them in and curled and inviting finger to him. "You'll just have to wait and see."

"No more waiting," he growled as he shucked off his blazer, kicked the door closed them and propelled himself at her. Again, he claimed her mouth in a frenzied and bruising kiss. He held her face firm with both hands as he simultaneously walked them deeper into the house and toed off his Converse shoes.

Rose tried valiantly to cool him just long enough to get them somewhere comfortable. "Bedroom," she gasped as his mouth moved to her neck and his hands dropped to grab at her behind.

"Too far away," he growled into her neck. "Stairs?"

"Too uncomfortable," she moaned with a shaking whimper. "Living room?"

That option seemed to work for him, and the Doctor swiftly swept her up in his arms, her legs around his hips, and quickly moved them toward their couch. "Works for me," he said with a grin as he let her fall into the cushions. He smirked darkly as he quickly undid the fly of his trousers and let them fall into a heap at his feet.

Rose couldn't help but giggle at the sight before her. Her Doctor with scruffy hair, flushed cheeks, wearing nothing but a creased, disheveled, white Oxford shirt long enough to kiss at the legs of his black boxer briefs. His uneven and slightly mismatched white socks hung off this toes, and his striped tie hung loosely to the right of his chest. Not quite the distinguished Timelord he played himself of as.

"C'mere," she purred with a crook of her finger. "My Doctor."

The grin that appeared on his face was slightly manic, and he growled as he launched himself onto the couch. Rose squealed in laughter.

A muffled voice from the kitchen doorway gasped in horror, and then whimpered in embarrassment. "Oh. God. I'm sorry."

The Doctor's head immediately shot up to look over the back of the couch. The threatening look that he attempted to leer upon the trespasser was most definitely hampered by the smear of lipstick that extended from the very edge of his mouth toward his ear, and the young man on the receiving end of the glare merely smiled and took a bite of his sandwich.

"You guys need ten minutes?"

The sound of a harsh gasp from beneath the Doctor, and Rose's head popped up over the couch beside him. "If you think the job only needs ten.." She paused with a chuckle and looked to the Doctor as she flicked her finger between them. "See what I did there?"

The Doctor gave her a wide-grinned giggle. "Oh yes. Brilliant!"

Spencer shook his head. "Yeah. Okay. Look, I'm not going to pretend to know what you're talking about, but when you're finished doing _whatever_, Rose. I really need to talk to you."

The Doctor's eyes narrowed in annoyance, but he didn't dare move from his position. "Spencer. We're going to need, oh, till Monday. So would you mind sodding off…"

"Doctor," Rose warned with a smile as she propped herself up onto her elbows to lean over the back of the couch. "Spencer wouldn't be here if it wasn't important. Would you?"

Spencer took another bite of his sandwich and spoke around his mouthful. "This ranks pretty high on the importance scale, Rose. So, yeah. Need you."

"Need my food too, apparently" the Doctor said with a growl as he finally moved from behind the couch and padded on floppy socked feet toward the side entrance to the stairs. He paused and frowned at the young man. "And how'd you get in, anyway?"

"Aww. Come on, man. Aim for some decency will ya?"

The Doctor looked down and belatedly realized that he was wearing only an Oxford, boxer briefs, socks and a tie. Evidence of his physiological reaction to his encounter with Rose was very much still on display, but he shrugged it off. "You _will _break into a man's house on the evening that you are most likely fully aware that he is celebrating an _anniversary _with the woman he loves." His look challenged Spencer to comment further.

"I'll buy it if you can tell me just _what_ anniversary you're celebrating," Spencer shot back with a smirk. He held up a key. "And I didn't break in, I have a key."

The Doctor quickly snatched it off him. "Permission revoked. Knock next time." He looked back to Rose with a longing stare. "Rose. I'll be upstairs waiting for you to finish." He looked at the watch on his wrist. "You have thirty minutes."

"Thirty or what," Rose asked quietly.

"Or I'll get bored and tinker with your hair dryer." He pursed his lips thoughtfully and actually seemed to consider a plan for such as he walked up the stairs. "Think Dyson Air blade Power, super heated. Oh yes, fast trying action."

Rose moaned. "Yeah, just remember that _you_ use it too, Doctor!" She called back as she shook her head and drew herself from behind the couch. "So, Spencer, my most awesome assistant. What can I do for you today?" She walked past him into the kitchen and leaned on the breakfast counter, where Spencer had already laid out some papers. She immediately began scanning the information. "What have we here?"

Spencer thumbed in the direction of the stairs. "It's something that he might be interested in."

"Probably," she said softly, with mild distraction as she focused a little harder on some of the papers. "If it involves a potential Alien threat, he'll probably leap all over it."

"There's nothing _potential_ about this one, Rose."

She looked down her shoulder at him. "Verified, then? So why are you coming to me?" She folded her arms and leaned down onto the tabletop on her elbows. "If the dogs are already on it, then I can't offer much. Just bring me their toys so you and I can see what we can cannibalize from them." She grinned at that. "We haven't had anything cool to play with for a while."

"I dunno," he breathed softly as he took position on the opposite side of the counter. "What you've got cooking in your vault seems to get you all happy."

"Change in subject," she sang. "Again, why are you bringing this to me? If they want me in, then I'll get the call." She looked at her phone. "Nothing."

"Well," he muttered in a conspiratorially low tone of voice. "I noticed something interesting inside the intel from this, that. Well. That I thought you might want to look at."

Her eyes flicked toward him. "What do you mean, exactly?"

He slid an iPad across the table and swiped his finger across the screen to shift to a photograph. "_That_ is what I think you'll be interested in."

Rose licked at her lip as she let her eyes slide across the two items in the image. One, a strange looking rod-shaped tool with dual handles and a plunger-style end. The other, a flat disk like object that had obviously seen better days. It was scratched and dented, yet still appeared to be in some working order if the lighted middle was any indication. "There's nothing too remarkable," she said softly. "It's alien, no doubt." She tilted her head lightly as she felt a slight warmth wash in her cheeks. She swayed ever so slightly. "Sontaren," she said softly. "Rheon Carbine sidearm weapon, standard since 2370. The disk is a time jump teleport device, typically used by the scout team. Jump technology for this unit was stolen from a hijacked decrepit TARDIS, in the twenty-second century. They couldn't properly utilize or harness the true power of the remaining matrix, and so they could only create single jump pads instead of apply the power to entire ships."

"Yeah on the gun" Spencer drawled long. "That's what the nerds in weapons told me. The rest, though. I'm slightly impressed, maybe even a little turned on that you knew so much about it, actually."

Rose gave the tiniest of shakes and let her eyes blink quickly. "Knew about _what, _sorry?"

Spencer's fingers tapped against the image on the iPad screen. "About this thing."

Her face lengthened in denial. "Oh. No. I have no idea what that is. Jump pad, maybe?" She pressed her finger into her lips and looked closer. "Any idea about where these things might be from?"

Spencer's eyes were wide and his words came out slow and careful. "Oh. I don't know. Sontaren, maybe?"

She pursed her lips. "Sontaren anal probe," she mused. "Yeah, maybe." She then grinned. "Cute. So. Still I ask. Why bring this to me?" She waved her hand at it. "The Nerds in weapons would probably lose their minds over this. This isn't my line of study."

"And so just what is, exactly," Spencer said curiously.

"Are you questioning your substantial paycheck?"

"No," he answered quickly. "But. Anyway. Let me show you why I needed to show you this." He swiped to a tighter image of the transported pad and zoomed in on the scratchings at its surface. ""_That_. Is what I thought would press your buttons."

Rose's eyes widened. Yes. Spencer was correct. This was very interesting indeed. Scratched crudely into the metal surface of the item, almost aligned perfectly in its centre was a circular design, curve after curve, circles within circles. She swallowed. "That. Is. Interesting."

"Ooh," Spencer remarked on a breath. "Punctuating every word. That's a good sign."

Her eyes flashed upward. "Why would you think I'd be interested in this design?"

Spencer leaned down onto his elbows. "Because it's the same one you've been doodling for the past few months, Rose."

She frowned and shook her head. "No I haven't. I am _not_ a doodler." She pointed at the image. "And I definitely wouldn't be doodling that specific…" she stopped and gasped as Spencer slid a piece of scrap paper across the table with identical markings on it. "So familiar, but what is it?"

"Yes, you do and you have," he said with a tap of his finger on the paper. "When you go into this _zone_ as you call it, right after you get out of that vault, you scratch and scribble these things in various designs on just about any piece of paper you can find. I've got a drawer full of them."

She looked slightly terrified. "You _keep_ them?"

He nodded. "I also hide them, Rose. I don't know what you're doing in there, but I'm pretty sure that you don't want anyone – specifically Marcus – getting any mitts on these and finding out."

"Thank you," she breathed. Her brow was taut in confusion. "But why would I be doing that? I don't even remember." She pulled the paper closer to her and analyzed it a little more.

"Do you know what it is?" Spencer asked gently.

"I don't know," she said worriedly.

"You have to," he urged.

Rose's eyes glassed over slightly as her finger drew along the lines of the circles. "It's circular Gallifreyan text," she answered softly. "The technical writing style of the Timelords of Gallifrey, a very ancient language. Each circle represents a full sentence, with each inner circle a word of that sentence."

"Do you know what it says?"

Her eyes remained on the paper, but her chin rose slightly as she spoke. Her voice was wistful, breathy, slightly musical. "Blanoir Wolchien."

"In English?" Spencer asked with a tilted bow.

The Doctor's voice growled from the doorway beside them. "It means _Bad Wolf_."


	6. The Oncoming Storm

A/N: Just a quick one today mainly because of lack of time. I had to get it up and posted as is, however, because I've already rewritten parts of this several times and am at serious risk of writing myself into a corner if I keep tinkering with it. Oh, how I want to set the fire going … but not yet … it's too soon… Time wants the Wolf right now, not the Lord…

THANKS for the reviews! I'm pleasantly stunned, and have to grin when I say that the reviews I received actually attributed to what happened in this section. I was originally going to play it all off and then thought ... Oh Hell no! Let's play! So thank you.

~~~oooOOOooo~~~

"_Do you know what it says?"_

_Her eyes remained on the paper, but her chin rose slightly as she spoke. Her voice was wistful, breathy, slightly musical. "Bahl whorl."_

_"__In English," Spencer asked with a tilted bow._

_The Doctor's voice graveled darkly across from the doorway beside them. "It means Bad Wolf."_

Rose gulped at the sound of her Doctor's voice, and at the darkened tone used to translate the phrase. She remained quiet as her eyes tracked his slow stalk toward her; the slow method by which he slid his glasses tightly up the bridge of his nose; the deliberately smooth manner by which he leaned his elbows on the countertop to bring his face in line with hers; and finally the stare that held an army of emotions most definitely lead by anger.

She didn't have that accurate second-by-second time brilliance of the Doctor that may have given her an accurate time frame of just how long he stood silently ahead of her lightly grinding his jaw, but she could guess that it spanned the gap of about two millennia.

"Spencer," the Doctor finally breathed. "Could you please give us a few minutes? Rose and I need to talk about a couple of things."

Spencer realized that his nod was unseen by the pair, and voiced his affirmative. "Yeah. I'll just head off then. I guess we'll meet at the office in a few?"

"Give us an hour," the Doctor breathed, still not taking his glare off Rose.

"Okay, then," Spencer muttered. "I'll see…"

"No," Rose quickly interrupted with a very, very timid tone of voice. "Please stay." She tore her eyes from the tractor beam glare of the Doctor and looked to her assistant with panic. "We'll all go together. Just give me a moment to get changed."

The Doctor's hand dropped quickly onto hers to prevent her escape. "We're not going anywhere." He paused to clear his throat. "Not until you explain a couple of things."

She looked for a moment at where his hand sat upon hers and then tugged it away. "We can discuss the details on the way to the office. It looks like we have a Sontaren scout – or even a ship – knocking on our door, and…"

His hand came down hard on the counter, which made both Rose and Spencer jerk. "That's _not_ what we need to talk about, and you know it."

She could see out in her peripheral vision Spencer gesturing that he should probably go give them their space, but she merely raised a hand to wordlessly ask him to stop. Her gaze remained on the Doctor's annoyed expression. "And whatever it is that you want to talk about, Doctor, whatever it is you want me to answer to, I'm sorry, but I just don't have the answers you're looking for." She swallowed and let her voice drop to something without aggression. "We've got more important things to worry about right now."

His projection of aggression didn't appear to abate any, but his voice did calm slightly. "There is nothing_," _he hissed through his teeth_. "Nothing_ more important or worth more worrying about than _you_ Rose. And I really couldn't care less right now just which alien ship is knocking on the door. Something is going on with you, and I need to deal with that before anything else."

"There's nothing to deal with." She narrowed her gaze and lowered her head to mirror his stance and position. "There is _nothing_ wrong with me, Doctor."

He didn't tear his eyes from hers as he swiped at the table and snatched up the piece of paper with the Gallifreyan Doodle on it. He showed t to her without looking at it himself. "Then explain this and how you can translate it."

"I don't know," she growled in return.

"How can you _not_ know," he snapped back in response as the paper scrunched in his hand and he tossed it back onto the counter. "This isn't something that you can pull off a website, Rose. This is a language _only_ spoken by the Timelords of Gallifrey; a race of people long since lost. Two people, Rose. Two people in this universe and beyond know this language."

"I don't know," she clarified darkly.

He straightened up and arrogantly looked down his nose at her, a looming man oozing with every bit of the Oncoming Storm energies of legend. "I know for a fact that I haven't been giving written lessons on my native language in my sleep, Rose. So tell me. Be honest with me. Where. Did. You. Learn.…"

"I. Don't. Know!" She thundered in reply in a manner very much like her Doctor had done on his first Alien encounter inside this regeneration. She was deliberate in ensuring that the delivery of her words mirrored his exactly. If he was going to get all pissy, punctuate every word, and generally act like an ass, then she was sure as heck going to play right alongside him.

"Okay then," he challenged as he folded his arms across his chest and shook off a little of his aggression. "Tell me what it is that you've been working on behind closed doors."

"No."

He had the gall to looked slightly shocked that she'd uttered a response in the negative. "Excuse me?"

"I said no," she stated simply, softly, as her posture lengthened and her face fell into calm yet furious arrogance. "I will not."

"Why can't you tell me," he asked softly, but with definite frustration. "Why do you feel that this is something that you can't share with me? What is it, Rose?"

She pressed her lips together and shook her head. "I just can't. It's personal, and you just can't know about it, yet." She sighed and looked to the ceiling. "Noone can know about it."

The Doctor pressed his lips tightly together and lowered his head with a nod. After a breath he let his eyes graze up to her face. "I thought we didn't have any secrets between us."

She let out a laugh. "Says you, the holder of the greatest secret of them all."

His eyes narrowed. "I don't keep any secrets from you, Rose. I'm an open book with you. Anything you want to know, just ask, and I'll gladly share."

"Be careful," she challenged. "Don't make a promise you can't keep."

"I'm not."

Her brow flicked high. "Then if that's the case. I'll share with you my deepest and darkest Vault-hidden secret if you answer me one question. Just one. That's it, one."

His brow flicked and one side of his mouth curled up into a victorious smile. "Go ahead, Rose. Ask. I'm not hiding anything from you."

She licked at her lip and set her jaw and facial expression into a preemptive _told you so_ countenance. "What's your name?"


	7. Separated

A/N: This chapter is a complete and utter rewrite to the original "The Contingency Plan" (aside for the first two paragraphs, because I suck at openings and didn't want to have to try to think of another one). I was immensely unhappy with the way it originally went, and in writing the chapter that followed. It didn't feel right. It was jumpy. It was stupid. It was absolute garbage. And, quite frankly, Rose was a bitch. Rose Tyler is anything but that, so I needed to fix that rather desperately. Additionally, the TARDIS bit, I could have and should have slapped my own face for that effort.

So. Now that I have the Oncoming Storm in all his glory all set up and ready to go, I figured that I would bloody well use him for some fun and games. Because angry!protective!Doctor is a fine thing of beauty indeed.

Again, anything that was in "The Contingency Plan" previously has been completely obliterated (25 MSWord pages worth! Ouch!) and means nothing to anything that will follow. I'm not even going to cannibalize any of it for any other chapter .. it's done, and I apologise profusely for ever sharing anything so horrific!

~~oooOOOooo~~~

_She licked at her lip and set her jaw and facial expression into a preemptive told you so countenance. "What's your name?"_

The horrific speed by which the Doctor's expression shifted from victory to absolute seething fury made Rose gasp and immediately regret her challenge. She and he had never actually gotten into just why he withheld his birth name from her. Rose had simply assumed it was just some Time Lordy mandate that thou shalt not be referred to by the name from the mother or some other such ritualistic reasoning. Assumption being the mother of all screw-ups, of course, she had assumed that he would probably call her bluff and ante up with the info, or just shake it off and admit defeat. No big deal.

Obviously she was mistaken.

Before she could attempt to splutter some form of apologetic retraction of her challenge, however, the Doctor broke from his rigid stance. He raised a finger and worked his jaw as if to speak, but then abruptly turned and stalked out of the room.

Rose gasped at the sound of the Doctor yelling what Rose could only assume was a rather sensational swear word in Gallifreyan. She jumped when their bedroom door slammed hard enough that she could almost feel the shockwave hit into her chest.

"Oh," she whimpered behind her hand as her eyes began to sting. "I crossed the line."

Spencer was quickly around the breakfast counter and at her side. He touched at her arm. "Hell, Rose. What was _that_?"

She felt the ripple of upset move into her shoulders and shuddered. "Apparently I just committed blasphemy in the highest order."

"I know you're trying for sarcasm there, Rose," Spencer offered softly as he tugged her lightly to attempt to console her with a hug. "But it's not working."

She refused the gesture with a shake of her head and a light press of her hand against his chest. "I should go and apologise."

At the sound of what was likely the entire contents of the top of their dresser being thrown to the ground, Spencer shook his head. "I'm not letting you go anywhere near him right now."

"He'd never hurt me," she assured softly.

"Not intentionally, maybe. But Rose. He's pissed." He put his hand on her shoulder and spared a wary glance toward the top of the stairs. "_Really_ pissed."

"I know," she hiccupped. "I've never seen him like this before." She wiped at her eyes to clear those insistent tears that wouldn't stop falling. "Never."

"And all because you asked him what his name was," Spencer grunted with unbidden incredulity. "Doesn't take much, does it?"

Rose closed her eyes with a shake of her head. "He's worried. Worse, he's worried about me, because he thinks something is happening with me and he doesn't know what it is. The Doctor doesn't handle _not knowing_ very well." She sighed. "Me demanding that he tell me his name was just the straw that broke the camel's back, so to speak."

"And I'm not going to pretend to know what that's about, but _shit, Rose._" He rubbed at her upper arm with soothing strokes. "Look. I'm not letting you go up there right now. Take a walk, a drive, anything. Just give him some time to cool down and then you two talk it out."

"I promise you, Spencer. He won't hurt me if I go up there right now."

"No, he won't, I don't doubt that," he said quickly. "But with tempers flared like they are, stuff might get said that can't be taken back." He gave her a pained look of begging. "The wrong words can hurt a Hell of a lot more than a punch across the face. Trust me, Rose. I grew up in that environment, I saw it every day before my parents finally called it quits."

"We'll be okay," she assured.

"Just, both of you cool down and think first, then talk, then make up, and then have incredible make up sex." He breathed deeply. "Just not right now, okay?"

"I'll apologise." She moved to the base of the stairs and looked up to the landing as she wrapped her hand cautiously around the spherical decoration at the end of the bannister. "I wonder, though, if me just saying _I'm sorry_ will work in this regeneration, or if that was just a nine-thing. He's such a different man, now. Maybe he won't let it go unless I ante up and tell him all about her." Her eyes widened. "For sure he won't let it go. I have no choice."

"Tell him what?" Spencer was obviously confused. "Nine? Regeneration? Rose, what are you on about?"

"TARDIS," she whispered softly.

"Who's TARDIS," he queried with a high brow.

"She's the _true_ love of the Doctor's life, his best friend." She hooked her hair behind her ear and took a single stride up. "And she's here. _Well_. Sort of."

"Oh no, don't tell me he's already married or something, Rose." He rubbed at his head to stave off a fast forming headache. "God. If I have to keep trying to follow you and your whacked out trains of thought, I'm going to request a pay grade increase."

"No, he's not currently married." she smiled. "At least not this particular regeneration. Who knows about the others?." She snapped her eyes suddenly to her cell phone, which was buzzing angrily on the counter. The Star Wars Imperial March tone began, and Rose drooped. "No. Not Torchwood. Not now."

Spencer snatched her phone from the table and looked at the message on the screen as he walked toward her. His face screwed up into a wince. "You're on, Rose," he muttered apologetically. "Torchwood's calling you in for contact with an Alien craft that breached UK airspace about five minutes ago." He looked up. "Sontaran, of course."

She slouched and shook her head. "Terrible bloody timing."

"Insensitive assholes these alien invaders, eh?"

"You have no idea." Rose rolled her eyes and snatched her phone from him. "The war of Tyler versus Doctor will have to call a ceasefire for now, I suppose." She leaned forward to press her hand on one of the steps to be able to call up. "Doctor!"

At the very distinct sound of the shower running upstairs, she winced. Before she could comment or move, however, Spencer let out a strangled sound. "Uh. You go, Rose," he managed. "You head on in to Torchwood, I'll drive the Doctor in when he's finished. No need to interrupt him right now"

Her look was one of suspicion. "If we're on move-out, then we don't exactly have time to wait for the Doctor to finish up."

"You do if he's been placed on stand-by." He took a step backward and nervously bit at his lip as though ready to receive a rant, slap, punch, or gunshot wound. "It looks like Marcus has separated the two of you and put you on different teams. Right now, you're on the team one, and the Doctor's on the second team."

She was incredibly silent for a long second. Her breath held in her chest for much longer than should have been anywhere near comfortable for a human to withstand. Finally, her voice shifted from between her lips in a very flat, bland, manner. "Oh. This day just keeps improving, doesn't it?"

"Sorry Rose. I heard grumbling about it a few days back," he admitted. "Intra-office relationships and all that bullshit. I should have mentioned it, but I didn't think he'd actually go through with it."

She rubbed tiredly at her eyes. "S'not your fault," she assured. "But if Marcus is looking for a fight, he's definitely found it." She indicated the upstairs with a jut of her chin. "If you think he's mad now, you just wait to see how he'll be when he finds out about _this_." She indicated an explosion by circling her arms and making a sound like a bomb going off. "Supernova."

"And you're leaving me to tell him. Nice boss you are." He rubbed at his head. "He doesn't often kill the messenger, does he?"

"Just give him a laptop to get started on trace and infiltration intelligence along the way to Torchwood, and he'll be fine." She patted his shoulder. "I promise." She grabbed her keys and handbag and ran to the door. "Oh," she added with a spin to face him. "And tell him that I love him, okay? And make sure that he knows that, yeah? You know. Just in case?"

"In case of _what_?"

She looked pained. "Sontarans don't take prisoners."

Spencer's face took on a lengthened and horrified expression as she door shut behind her. As he heard Rose's car squeal out of the driveway, the most horrific image of the Doctor and Rose not being able to see each other again appeared in his mind. He reminded himself that their last words to each other were harsh and angry, and his heart broke.

He ran up the stairs, two and three steps at a time and pounded hard on the bathroom door. He wasn't going to let that happen.

"Doctor!"

~~oooOOOooo~~

Rose stood in the centre of five people, back against the wall, deep within the invading Sontaran command ship. She held her weapon – a hand gun – in the space between her bent and parted legs and leaned forward in an attempt to see the pathway ahead of them.

She was completely out of sorts on this mission. This team was not comprised of any of her usual squad. She was not leading the team. She didn't agree with a single one of their mission parameters and movement plans.

What did Marcus think that five soldiers could possibly hope to achieve in a ship carrying quite possibly a few thousand ancient alien warriors? Not much. Not bloody much at all. At least if they were with the Doctor, he could find a way to disable their weapons, maybe decipher a Sontaran command or two to help them through, perhaps even find a way to quite literally smack their potato headed asses and send them off packing into another dimension to let the someone else more equipped to deal with them.

But. No. They were five men (okay, one woman) basically alone, with no intelligence that they could make any sense of, and not enough weaponry to make it out of this new brand level of Hell in one piece.

"Right," the leader of their group ordered in a low voice. "We've made it to their main engine room. Phillips, You, me and Wilson will go in and set the charges. Tyler and Andrews, you stand guard out here. Take out any Potato Head that comes anywhere near the place."

"You're kidding me, right?" Rose challenged. "You're leaving the two of us out here to face the troops alone?"

"That's the plan, Tyler. Got a problem with it?"

"Several, actually," she snarled at him; a petite blonde woman against a six-foot-four hulk of a man. "Where would you like me to start?" She looked around him to peer into the room. "We don't even know if we're in the right place. This is all guess work. We should just stand down and wait for Team Two," she advised. "Let the Doctor disable this thing properly, maybe we'll save some lives and get out of this in one piece."

He sneered down at her. "We've got _orders _from the top. We set the charges per Marcus' orders, and blow this place to Hell. I'm not gonna sit here and twiddle my thumbs waiting for your boyfriend geek in a pinstripe suit to screw around and get us all killed."

"You know," Andrews offered. "I'm more than okay to go with her option, man." He thumbed to Rose. "I've heard the stories. He might be a pretty boy geek, but he's got more balls than half of the entire Torchwood squad combined."

"Yeah," Wilson remarked in agreement. "He's the guy who put down the Cybermen."

Their Commander pointed a finger into Wilson's chest. "The Cybermen were a bunch of robots and he took them out with a cell-phone code." He thumbed over his shoulder. "We've got live soldiers here and that trick aint gonna work."

Rose shuddered with worry. "Please, can we just wait for the Doctor?"

Their commander curled a lip. "Bloody women. Yeah. You can wait here, grab one of your dolls and plait her hair while you wait for your precious Doctor to turn up and blab his way to a piss-poor resolution, meanwhile half the planet dies." He stood tall to loom down over her. "We, the _men_ are going to follow orders and blow this place to smitherines." He flicked his fingers to Phillips and Wilson. "Set the charges with a ten minute ignition sequence and follow me."

"Ten minutes," Rose yelped. "But our jump pads won't reactivate for another twenty! You'll kill us all."

"For Queen and country," the Commander snaked in response. He stalked ahead of the trio into the room.

"Oh," Rose snarled as she pulled her phone from her pocket. "I don't bloody think so."

Andrews watched as Rose thumbed through her contacts. "What're you doing?"

"Calling for back-up," she answered as she thumbed the screen for a Facetime connection. "I'm not dying today – or any other day – on the orders of that wanker." She pressed her back heavily into the wall as she waited for the phones to connect. "C'mon, Doctor, Answer." Her voice softened to pleading. "Please help me."

No sooner had she requested help, and the Doctor's panicked face appeared on the screen. "Rose, thank Rassilon. Look. Wait for me, okay. Don't board that ship under any circumstances. I'm on my way."

She winced. "Uhm."

"Rose. Please. I mean it. If you've ever trusted me, then listen to me now. This isn't what Marcus thinks it is. Don't board that ship."

Her expression was pained as she let her head roll back against the wall and she scanned her phone's camera around to properly show him where she was. "I had no choice, Doctor. As soon as I arrived they put a jump pad on me and we leapt on board."

The Doctor cursed low in his native language and seemed to take a long and calming breath before he spoke again. When he did is was with even and level tones. "Okay. Can't change that I suppose. Can you show me where you are and maybe I can keep you alive until I get there."

She switched the camera so that she could continue to see his face as she scanned the area around her. She could see his locked concentration, the way he worked his jaw, and the suppressed anger slowly bubbling back to the surface. "The team leader - aka Ass Clown – and two other operatives have entered this room." She aimed the camera that way. "He says it's the engine room, but I'm not too sure about that."

"No," the Doctor confirmed. "That's not the engine room. Too small and there's no guards in place. It's more likely you're reached the laundry room or something else as innocuous."

Both Rose and Andrews gave a snort.

"That doesn't mean that you aren't in Danger, Rose," the Doctor warned sharply. "How many of you are there?"

"As in the group, or left out in the hallway on scout?"

"Right now. Right at this moment. How many?"

She took a breath and prepared herself. "Two."

"Two?" His voice was laced with disbelief.

"Out of five," Rose sighed.

"Get out of there," he demanded desperately. "I don't care who you leave behind, Rose. But, please, get out of there! There is _no_ way that you can possibly hope to contain even a single Sontaran with just two of you."

She shook her head. "I can't. We can't." She raked her hand through her fringe. "We can only jump once every thirty minutes, Doctor. We have at least fifteen until our devices will have powered up again."

"Just hold on for me please, Rose," he begged in a stricken tone. "I'll think of something." His face was wrought with desperation. "Oh, what I would give to have my TARDIS right now."

"Doctor, please," Rose said softly. "Just in case we can't, you know. I just want you to know…"

"No," he barked. "I'm coming for you, Rose. I'm coming to get you, I promise." He smiled with encouragement. "My Rose Tyler doesn't give up now, does she?"

"Oh, I wouldn't…"

There was a loud clatter as the phone fell loudly to the floor. The Doctor let out a yell as he heard Rose scream his name in desperation and then the sound of gun fire.

"Rose!"


	8. The ASSistant Director

~~oooOOOooo~~

Torchwood communications was busy when the Doctor breezed in through the doors with his coat flapping behind him and his Converse shoes squeaking on the steel floor. He was the picture of happy confidence as he strode up to the Command panel and took position beside the Torchwood heads.

"Right," he said cheerfully with a clap and rub of his hands. "Which one of you is Marcus?"

While the vast majority of the technicians in the immediate area shrank, or ducked warily behind their monitors fearing what may come, the man in question gave the Doctor a smug look. "I'm Assistant Director Graham," he said proudly. "You must be the Doctor." He extended his hand. "I've heard a lot of things about you."

The Doctor ignored the gesture of greeting and merely offered a blatantly fake smile. "I'm fairly sure that you haven't heard the _more_ interesting things, because, _well_, we wouldn't be at this point, would we?"

"And just what point would that be, Doctor?"

"At the point where I clap my hands and say _Allons-y_ _Marcus_, you're coming with me."

"And just where would we be going, Doctor?"

The Doctor leaned forward in an exaggerated manner and pointed up to the ceiling of the Command Centre. "Just up there we have a Class-A Sontaran Command ship with, ohhh," he thoughtfully pressed his lips together for a moment. "Well, about two thousand Sontaran Soldiers, all of them born warriors. All very highly trained and ready to put down their lives in the name of their species." His eyes narrowed. "Are you keeping up?" He was still stooped slightly forward, but let his eyes shift up to look at the Assistant Director of Torchwood. "We'll be going up there. Just you and me, Assistant Director and Doctor, transmatting on board in the middle of a Sontaran battle fleet to rescue our team."

Marcus folded his arms arrogantly across his chest. "And just _why_ do you suggest that I would join you up there?"

"Oh," the Doctor hummed with a smile as he finally drew himself to his full height. "I'm not _suggesting_ that you join me," he corrected. His smile fell to a warning snarl. "I'm insisting."

"We have a facility filled with trained soldiers," Marcus snapped. "Of which I am not. Why would you even think I might be in any way the appropriate person to join you, Doctor?"

The Doctor flicked open his jacket to thrust his hands deeply into his trouser pockets and gave a short smile as he looked to the ground, and then shifted just his eyes upward. "It'll just make things easier for me, really."

"What _things_, Doctor?"

"Just _how_ much have you been told about who I am, Assistant Director?"

"Is that important?" He gruffed in response.

"It might well be," the Doctor offered in a faux friendly manner. "You see, Rose Tyler is up there on that ship. She was sent up there on your orders. Orders, I might add, that were given

before you had any real tangible intelligence about who the Sontarans are and why they're here." He leveled a look of question to the Assistant Director. "You _do_ _know_ who the Sontarans are, yeah?"

"I am fully aware of the current enemy situation, Doctor," Marcus growled in irritation. "And I will thank you to not continue to waste our time throwing a tantrum because you couldn't hold hands with your girlfriend on the big, bad, ship." He waved a dismissive hand at him. "You are dismissed."

A momentary expression of disbelief crossed the Doctor's face as the words of Marcus blew through him. That look was quickly exchanged for mild annoyance as he leaned down to the console and pressed the knuckles of both fists either side of a thin microphone. He flattened his palms, drummed his fingers briefly as though seeking calm and then set his fingers down on the keyboard and called up a screen that was rolling through information currently being shared between the Torchwood and Sontaran computer Networks. He dropped his head with a huff. "This wasted time is quite necessary I'm afraid," he muttered evenly as he looked at the time remaining on the screen. "And don't you think for a moment that I am in any way thrilled about it."

Marcus pointed first to security and then to the Doctor. "Can someone please remove this man from my command room? I've had quite enough."

"Oh," The Doctor breathed darkly. "You haven't had anywhere near enough, I assure you."

"Go and play your games elsewhere, _Doctor_."

The Doctor was clearly irritated and slowly slid a furious glare toward Marcus. His voice turned a rich, thick, dark tone as both hands rolled back into fists on the console. "You think I'm playing? The woman I love has been taken hostage on an Alien ship filled with Ancient warriors who have nothing better to do than destroy entire planets just because they're in their path, and you're accusing me of throwing tantrums and playing games?" The Doctor's lip gave a dramatic curl as he pushed himself off the console and launched himself at Marcus. He growled through gritted teeth as he slammed the Assistant Director against the wall and held him firmly in place with his forearm across his throat. "I don't know what you've been told about who I am, but you should know that I am not a man who plays games when there are lives at stake." He pushed his forearm harder against the throat of the Assistant Director. He hissed through his teeth at him. "Especially when Rose's life is one of those at stake."

Pete Tyler's voice boomed from the doorway. "Doctor! That's enough!"

The Doctor's head slowly turned to the doorway. His eyes hardened further for just a moment before he grunted and forcibly pushed himself away from Marcus. He stepped back with a firm point toward the man. "Like it or not, you're coming with me. Because if she has one scratch, even one hair out of place…"

"I'm not going anywhere with you," he croaked as rubbed his throat. "You're a mad man."

"That's been said more than once."

Pete Tyler moved quickly up stairs and fired Marcus a frustrated and disgusted glare before he took place beside the Doctor. "Doctor," he said with a nod in greeting.

"Pete."

He took a very deep inhale and glances sideways to the Doctor. "Jackie has first dibs, just so you know."

The Doctor snorted.

"So what've we got, Doc? What can you tell me?"

The Doctor raked his hand though his hair. "Not much more than you already know right now. I'm waiting for the General to make contact so I can confirm the link and Rose's position."

"You're going straight in and out, then, no messing about?"

The Doctor noted the disappointment in Pete's tone and licked at his lip. "Well that all depends, really." His face broke out into a happy grin as Spencer jogged in through the doorway. "Spencer! Did you find what I needed?"

Spencer panted as he made it up the stairs to the command platform. He swallowed over a dry tongue and leaned on the railing as though he'd collapse if he tried to stand of his own volition. "Yeah," he managed as he held up a jump disk. "We're on lockdown, which means no elevators, I had to clear seven flights of stairs - twice – to get you this thing." He tossed it into the Doctor's waiting hands.

"Brilliant," the Doctor breathed as he double checked the device and held it at his side. "Now I think I'm adequately equipped to get up there and do what needs to be done." His gaze shot to the view screen as it swam and flickered into focus. "Okay. First things first. Here we go." He put his hand down on to the shoulder of the technician at the computer. "Maintain the link and let my program do its thing."

"Of course, Doctor."

A grainy image of the Sontaran General quickly phased into view. He appeared to look at the array of people in the Torchwood command room, and then let his focus settle on the man in the pin striped suit. "Doctor," he said smugly. "You received my invitation I see."

The Doctor slid his hands into his pockets and cleared his throat. He answered with forced joviality. "If you mean the great big space ship in the sky over London, then yep. Received. Thank you." He shrugged. "Sorry I didn't get a chance to RSVP just yet, but I have to confirm my schedule with the missus first." He rubbed at the back of his head. "And I seem to be having a bit of trouble getting hold of her right now. Any chance you could point me in the right direction?"

There was the smallest of yelps as Rose was dragged into view from her position just off camera. "Doctor!"

He tried to hide the fracture in the relaxed façade he was projecting. He managed to hold it to just an eye twitch and a slow grinding jaw movement until he saw the tiredness in her eyes and the large open wound on her forehead. The façade fell quickly to one of anger. He whispered her name quietly and let his eyes scrape along the transmission image toward the Sontaran leader. "What do you want?"

"I think that's obvious, Doctor," the General responded with a hint of victory in his tone. "Victory against your planet Earth. Victory for Sontara." He turned as his men chanted loudly behind him. With a smug smile he looked back to the Doctor. "I have the woman you love captured and at my side. If you try to stop us, Doctor. She will die."

"You don't get to threaten her," he snarled in response.

"You aren't in a position to stop me," he said with a smirk. "We've jammed your networks and have rendered your ability to teleport onto our ship impossible. Your TARDIS will be destroyed if you attempt to board our ship."

The doctor looked through his brows at the General. He gave a sickened smile and flicked a brow in challenge. "Are you underestimating the travel ability of the Time Lord and his TARDIS, General? You of all people should know that I can _always _find a way."

He thrust the muzzle of his weapon under Rose's jaw with enough force to make her wince and lift her chin. "Try it, and your woman will perish."

The Doctor leaned down to the microphone. "You should know one thing, General. The only thing in this universe that is more dangerous than underestimating _this_ Time Lord, is to make a threat against my Rose. I accept your party invitation, General. I'll be right up." His eyes flicked to his beloved. "Rose?"

"Yes, Doctor?" Her voice was full of hope.

"I'll see you soon." He leaned forward and quickly shoved at a lever to cut communication to the Sontaren ship.

"Okay, okay," he muttered with a pace as he ran both hands over his hair and laced his fingers together at the back of his head. "This is good, and this is bad. Good. Bad. Good. Bad." He let his hands fall and lifted his chin to display a manic smile. "Oh no. This is _brilliant._ Brilliant! Molto Bene!"

Pete was confused. "Doctor?"

The Doctor quickly slid into the empty seat beside the Technician who he'd tasked with maintaining the link with the ship. "Did it complete?"

The technician nodded quickly. "About thirty seconds before you disconnected, why?"

"Perfect," he cheered as he took control of the mouse and scrolled impossibly fast through all of the information downloaded to the system.

Pete thumped him on the shoulder. "Care to share what is so brilliant about my daughter being held hostage up there?"

"Oh. No, no. There's nothing good about that," The doctor said quickly with a frown as he completed reading the information. "Nothing at all. But for now she's safe. They're using her as their insurance, so I say she's got, oh, about fourty five minutes, give or take. That's plenty of time for me to get up there and…"

"He's disabled our ability to transmat onboard," Pete argued.

The Doctor gave a short, breathy, laugh. "Not exactly." He walked around the computer terminals analyzing all of the varying information produces by each console. "These soldiers are from the parallel universe," he began with a smile. "This means they haven't taken time to consider the different atmospheric and wave energy conditions of this earth."

"How can you be so sure of that," Marcus chirped. "How can you be sure that they're from the alternate?"

"Easy," the Doctor said with a waggle of his brows. "They think I'm _him_." He felt the need to clarify without being asked and just rattled on with his explanation. "According to the data we just pulled from the ship, it seems that they've set jamming fields against the TARDIS materialization base codes and are scanning for Time Lord binary vascular biology on their ship." He grinned. "I am not a Time Lord, well, not a full one anyway." He punched at his chest. "One heart. Just one."

He waved his hands through the air as he began a brisk and circular walk. "So the good thing about all that is that I can get on that ship completely undetected. I can rescue Rose, send these Sontarans home and be home in time for breakfast." He looked to Pete with a toothy smile. "Brilliant!"

"Nice Hypothesis," Marcus muttered to rain on the parade. "And if you're wrong?"

The Doctor offered a very boyish, wide-eyed smile and held his hand up. "Well we always have this, don't we?" He paused to admire it a moment. "Sontaran portable jump disk recovered from a crash site yesterday." His brow lifted. "Which, was also the cause of quite a spectacular disagreement an hour and a half ago." His voice softened dramatically, full of regret. "Oh. Rose. I'm sorry."

He looked up very quickly at Pete Tyler and gave a tight-lipped smile. "Yep, okay. Right. So. I'm going in." He pursed his lips. "Wish me luck."

"You're not going up there." Pete stepped forward quickly as the Doctor palmed the jump device. "Not _alone_ you're not."

He let out a breath as he opened his eyes to find himself in the middle of a corridor in the middle of the alien ship. "Sorry, Pete. I have to do this alone."


	9. Half time Lord, Half Human

A/N: Just to be clear for this one (and for anything else looking anywhere near techie) I am so technologically retarded it isn't funny. I know absolutely nothing about how anything works (which is why I have a husband, really)… That said: I picked pretty impressive sounding tech words and whacked them on in there to completely bluff my way through it. If I'm wrong – and I can say with about 99% sureness that I am – I beg of you to please go with some suspension of belief for me… please… J

~~oooOOOooo~~

Pete Tyler merely shook his head as the Doctor disappeared into a bright blue flash before him. "I suppose that I am to assume that every remaining transportation device within this facility is rendered completely bloody useless right now." He slid his eyes to Marcus. "Yeah?"

Marcus nodded his head and rubbed at his chin. "If what the talking potato said was true, then yes, they're all dead. Which means five soldiers, plus the _Doctor_, with no way out."

"Take the smile out of your voice when you say that," Pete warned.

Marcus gave a short grunt. He worked his jaw a moment, and then turned to the Director. "Pete. I want him _out_ of Torchwood."

Pete Tyler kept his eyes straight ahead. "Why?"

"Because he's the very thing we are fighting to protect Queen and Country against."

Pete's eyes rolled upward. "You're just butt-hurt because the man didn't agree with your decision to send in a team without knowing just what we were dealing with." He smirked. "And that he so magnificently managed to publically call you out for it."

"He's an _alien_, Pete. Aliens attract other aliens."

That was a fact Pete couldn't exactly deny outright. There did seem to be some magical alien trouble magnet attached to the Doctor – and by association Rose. He played it off however. "Sending out probes proclaiming our presence in the universe and inviting contact with other worlds will do that too." He let his eyes shift to Marcus. "The Doctor remains as one of our key operatives, both in the lab and in the field. I advise you to make nice and get used to his presence here, because he'll be here a while."

Marcus leaned in with a sneer. "I wouldn't count on it."

Pete smiled thinly. "Watch it, Marcus. That sounds like a threat."

"A promise," Marcus sneered as he turned and stalked off to another area of the Command station.

Pete watched with suspicious eyes as Marcus walked away from him. It was true that he absolutely did not like the man; slimy little greaseball that he was; but he had to give credit where credit was due. Marcus was a political master. Torchwood really couldn't remain financially stable if it wasn't for him.

But facts were facts and right now Pete Tyler needed some. The Doctor had obviously missed a couple of glaringly important questions on this particular assignment – or maybe not and he was simply prioritizing – and Pete felt that it was up to him, as Director of Torchwood, to dig a little deeper and have those questions answered.

Because the Queen would sure as hell ask them when the reports came in.

He turned his attention to the scruffy looking lab tech beside him. "Spencer. Question."

"Spencer switched between rocking on his feet and biting on his nail. "Shoot."

"You're very up to date on Rose's reports on the entities that she and the Doctor encountered on their previous travels together, am I correct?"

Spencer nodded. "Yep. I've even gotten some of that extra cred by enduring some of the tales of adventures not quite fit for reports to the Queen." He gave a chuckle and then a werewolf's howl.

Pete let out a breath. "I don't know if I've missed any of those reports, but can you recall any involving Sontara and Sontarans?"

Spencer shook his head. "She's never mentioned them. And considering as a group they resemble a sack of potatoes, I'd bet my wage that she wouldn't be able to hold back in telling me all about them at the earliest opportunity."

Pete pressed his lips together and nodded. "Exactly."

"And why is that so important, Sir?"

Pete blew out a breath and glared toward the army of personnel on the lower floor below them. "If the Doctor and Rose haven't ever faced off together against these invaders, then just how did they know about her and the Doctor? How was it that of this whole planet, they _knew _it was Rose that has that man's heart?"

"Ouch," Spencer winced. "I didn't think of that."

"And our jump pads. How could they jam a frequency that is untraceable, we've got dampers and then some attached to those pads. It's impossible, impossible. It should be even more impossible to obtain and then block them if you're from another dimension."

Spencer's eyes widened. "You think they were _invited_?"

"I hope not," Peter growled. "Now. I don't recall an alien crash site being discovered within the last several weeks. How did you manage to find a Sontaran pad for the Doctor?"

"There was a crash yesterday, apparently," Spencer advised softly. "Report probably hasn't made it to your desk yet." He looked slightly guilty. "The pad was in the executive wing on the seventh. I only heard about it because I've pinned some specifics into the network to flag and notify me of any matches." He bit his nail. "I came across that because of the writing on it."

"Specific to the Doctor, perhaps?"

"Yah, him. More Rose, though," he said with a shrug. "It looks like it's directly related to the work she's doing right now behind closed doors."

Pete inhaled a deep breath. "Can I _trust_ you, Spencer?"

"Absolutely, Sir."

"Good," he said darkly. "When our team return, I want to arrange for a private meeting between the two of us. Rose swears that you have a keen analytical mind, I'm going to use it."

Spencer grinned. "That comes with a pay raise, right?"

~~oooOOOooo~~

The Doctor warily checked his watch as he continued his movements through the corridors of the Sontaran ship in search of the main command deck, and where he hoped that he would find Rose and the rest of the team – provided, of course, that they were all still alive. There was the definite potential that the Sontaran General had ordered their extermination immediately, but he had to hold out hope that they'd survived.

Today, he hoped, everyone would survive. It had been far too long since he'd had one of those days.

Twenty five minutes he'd been on board. By his calculations, Rose should have at least another twenty before the General started to get all trigger happy. Of course, the General did seem to have the intent to force him to watch as her beautiful life was so cruelly ripped away, so perhaps he had some wriggle room.

He slammed shut the access panel that he'd accessed moments before and gave himself a preparatory shake. It was show time.

With careful deliberate movements, he curled his body around the doorway of a large room and took stock of what he could see within. There was the briefest of smiles as he caught the sight of blonde hair, and of three human males standing to her left.

Four. Weren't there five?

His eyes surveyed the room full of armoured Sontaran soldiers in search of the fifth. He counted them off. He analyzed any potential escape routes and the location of the ship's main control console. A slow flick of his gaze to the floor just beyond the door and his heart sank. The fifth human soldier was on the floor in an unnatural heap on the ground.

Quickly, the Doctor slid in through the door. He kept his eyes on the distracted Sontaran soldiers and dropped to a crouch beside the fallen Soldier. "Now, let's see what shape you're in," he whispered softly as he kept his eyes up and alert, and pressed his fingers into the soldier's neck. "Brilliant," he said with a smile to find a pulse, thumping strongly against his fingertips.

He set the transport disk beside the soldier's arm and settled himself a little more comfortably at his side. "I'm going to need your help," he muttered quietly as he held the man's head; thumbs against the apples of his cheeks and his index and middle fingers against his temples; and closed his eyes. "Don't let me down."

~~oooOOOooo~~

"So much for your boyfriend showing up," the Torchwood team commander hissed toward Rose standing to his right.

"He'll be here, Jackson" she snarled. "And he'll get us out of here."

Jackson gave a gruff laugh. "He's had thirty minutes to figure out how to get up here," he snarked. "What's he doing, making sure his hair's spiked just right and his suit is pressed before he leaves? Bloody joke that man is."

"What's your problem with him?" she demanded through a hiss. "You haven't even met the Doctor so how can you even have an opinion?"

Wilson leaned forward and raised his hand. "I've got no problem with him, just so we're clear. He's a hilarious bastard when you get him going. And _brilliant_." He pointed to his watch. "He did this thing with my…"

"Wilson, shut up," Jackson growled. "We really don't care."

"I'm just saying that…"

"I don't care." Jackson turned his attention back to Rose. "I'm not letting my life hinge on whether or not your _alien _boyfriend can find a way up here." He tapped at his jump disk. "These things should've reactivated almost a half hour ago. We should've been fine to get out of here, but they're dead."

"I've noticed," Rose breathed.

"So if we're stuck up here, that means they're all stuck down there. And unless your Doctor is Mary-freaking-Poppins and can fly a broom…"

"Umbrella," Wilson corrected.

"Shut up," Jackson growled. "We're all going to get killed because we're standing around like a bunch of girls…"

"You know," Rose snarled. "I'm beginning to hope that they _do _kill us. In fact, I'm begging for it. I reckon it'll be worth spending my eternity in Hell where I will be more than happy to watch your self-righteous and pathetic ass be skewered daily by red hot pokers."

A hand found hers and a chuckle ghosted gently across her ear. "Now now, Rose. That's not very nice."

She withheld a squeak and a dance on the spot only because the Doctor pressed his finger gently against her lip. She did manage to whisper his name around his finger.

"Are you okay," he asked softly as his eyes searched her face. At her nod, he pressed his lips against the scrape on her forehead. "Sorry I was late. I had a couple of stops to make on the way."

"You're here now, that's all that matters."

He gave her a wink and pulled away from her to walk himself into the throng of Sontarans. "Which brings me to this." He clapped his hands and put on his most welcoming grin. "Sorry I'm late, General." He ran his hand over his hair and adjusted his tie. " Got held up making myself pretty for the big event." He strode to the command console and leaned his hip against it, waving off the soldiers that immediately trained their weapons on him. "There's really no need for the big toys. I'm not armed."

The General stalked forward, held his head high and puffed out his chest. "Doctor. I was beginning to think you wouldn't make it."

"Well," he began with a huff and a roll of his eyes. "Something was interfering with my methods of transportation, wasn't it? A cab fare up here cost more than my house, and so I was left with little option but to put my thumb out and hitch hike." He waggled his brows as he leaned his hand down on the console. "Offer a few favours, make some friends, you know how it is."

"This isn't the time for jokes," the General snarled.

The Doctor put his hand in his pocket and flicked his finger distractedly against a couple of switches on the console. "Who's joking? It's hard to get a free ride out there." His look quickly turned serious, however. "So. General. What do you want?"

The General laughed, which made many of his fellow soldiers laugh along with him. "Why, we want victory over the Earth. Complete elimination of the human-race. Victory to Sontara!" He turned to his men to urge them into a chant for their world.

The Doctor lowered his head and pinched tiredly at the bridge of his nose. "Yes. Yes. Rah Rah to Sontara." He lifted his eyes to the General and leaned back again on the Console, this time allowing both hands to press into the control surface into a heavy lean. "But that's not really _it_ is it?" He tipped his head to one side. "I mean, _well_, it's not in your nature to take hostages and wave them in front of a camera as though you're ready to bargain, is it? The Sontarans are a league of ancient warriors who invade and eliminate, not dangle a carrot and look to make a deal."

"We make no deals," the General snarled.

"And yet here we are," his eyes widened and he filled his cheeks with air before finishing. "Here I am." He thrust his hands into his trouser pockets. "You can let them go now," he tipped his head to the Torchwood team. "Now that you've got me."

"The last of the Time Lords," the General boomed triumphantly. "The complete elimination of Gallifrey and all its children." He curled his fist into the Doctor's face. "Victory to the armies of Sontara."

"_What?_" the Doctor barked with a laugh of pure incredulity. "Are you kidding me? _Victory_ to Sontara for killing _one_ Time Lord?" He raised his head and laughed through a wide open mouth in disbelief. "You're actually going to take credit for the destruction of an entire race of people because you killed _one_ Time Lord."

"The very last of the Time Lords," the General said with a grin.

"Well. See. That's where you might have a problem," the Doctor challenged facetiously with a pop of the p, roll of the r and a wide-eyed nod of his head. "You see. I'm not the last Time Lords. _Well_, I'm not even fully Time Lord if you want to get purely technical."

"You are the Doctor. You are the last of the Time Lords."

The Doctor's face screwed up a little, maybe apologetic, maybe arrogant, maybe even a touch triumphant. "Well not really." His expression straightened out and he peeled off the console to walk up the length of it, drawing his fingers along the surface. "See. Thing is. I'm not _really_ the Doctor that you're looking for. I mean, _yeah_, I am the Doctor. But again, I'm not _the Doctor_." He pressed his backside against the console again in a lean. "I'm actually just a Biological Meta-Crisis version of the Time Lord you're looking for. Part Human, part Time Lord. No TARDIS, no time travel, no regeneration." He let out a disappointed breath. "Nothing, really. Killing me isn't going to put you in any better a position than you were, oh, say six months ago. When _he_ was the last one." He looked thoughtful as his voice quietened. "Still is, I guess, seeing I don't really count."

"That is a lie," the General boomed.

"I'm afraid it isn't," he answered apologetically. "So. You can kill me, yeah of course you can, but it's not going to give you all out victory against Gallifrey." He strode around to the other side of the console to lean against it and regard the General from across it. "But. While I might not be a full biological Time Lord of Gallifrey, I did manage to get enough from my _brother _that I can make it very, very difficult for you to kill me; Kill my friends," his look darkened and his lip curled as he threw forward a switch on the console. "Or do anything remotely destructive toward this planet."

The General's eyes flashed open. "Kill him! Kill the time Lord!"

There was a horrified and desperate scream from Rose as every firearm in the room pointed toward the Doctor. It was clear that she struggled against the arms of at least two other men. The Doctor gave her a wink and a smile from his position as all weapons tried to fire, but all powered down instead.

He grinned as he thrust his hands into his pockets and rocked victoriously onto his heels. "Oh, but two can play at _your_ game, General. See. I was able to trace into your main frequency jamming field by accessing the lines through the access panels," he tightened his expression in thought. "Ahh, at the second panel from your weapons vault, actually." He waggled his head in a boyish manner. "Sontarans," he breezed with a smile and a doip of his head. "You've always used the same weaponry. Same software, same design, same basic everything, really. Not difficult to set your own jamming signals against what's in here."

"Your beloved planet will suffer for this." The General bellowed with a raise of his fist. "Such trickery won't work with our ship's primary weapon."

"Oh," the Doctor queried sharply as he threw another switch and a massive explosion from deep inside the belly of the craft rocked the Command room. "You mean _that_ primary weapon? Sorry," he snarled. "I guess I shouldn't have reversed the foldback harmonic frequency of the main power feed. It does tend to make things a little unstable." He slammed his palm down onto a button and another explosion shook the giant ship. "Whoops, there goes the bypass valve to the main fuel line. _That_ will take some time to repair, won't it."

The General spun to face the Torchwood team and pointed a stubby finger at them. "Take his friends. Kill them!"

"I don't think so," the Doctor yelled darkly. "All I have to do is press this button and the whole ship will explode."

Absolute silence fell immediately across the command deck. All eyes moved to the doctor, who had his hand up, ready to slam down on a big, green, button.

"I was just warming up," he growled. "Those were just teasers for the final big bang!" He looked to Rose. "Now. You'll let them go or I will destroy this ship and everyone on board."

Rose was aghast. "Doctor. No!"

The General curled a lip, but stood proud. "Then you will destroy us," he demanded. "We will die in battle. It is an honour for a Sontaran to die in battle."

"Yeah, but at my hand?" he questioned doubtfully. "Really?"

"Our death will also be the death of a time Lord. It is honourable."

The Doctor shrugged. "Fine. If that's what you want." He glared to the Torchwood team. "Phillips! On your feet." He pointed to Rose. "Get her out of here!"

Phillips, the prone soldier, leapt to his feet and immediately ran at Rose and the remaining members of his team. Rose launched forward and fought against protective and binding hands as she screamed for the Doctor.

Phillips wrapped his arms around Rose and palmed the blue face of the Sontaran jump device. Inside a giant ball of light, the five person Torchwood team transported off the ship.

The Doctor looked desperately at the dissipating light, and at the fading image of his beautiful Rose. "I'm sorry, Rose," he said sadly as he brought his hand down onto the green button. "I'm so sorry."


	10. I'll Always Come Back for You

A/N: I have rewritten the end of this chapter to make it, perhaps, slightly more in character than my original attempt. I hope that it is a little better on the second take. Just a short one to finish off this arc… Time to move on… Allons-y!

~~oooOOOooo~~

Rose's desperate and terrified screams were the first sounds that filled the room as the materialization field of the Torchwood Five appeared at the centre of the Command station at the Torchwood office. Peter Tyler ran immediately to his daughter's aid as Phillips launched into a run toward the door with the jump disk in his hand.

"Bring that back to me," she screamed as she took after him in chase. "I have to go back for him!"

Phillips twisted in his fun to face her, and stumbled sideways on to his knee. "I'm not to let you go back," he growled. "I have to keep you here, safe." He got to his feet, launching into his run again while he was still deeply in a forward stoop.

Rose could barely function due to her blinding tears and aching chest, but she could certainly scream out in the negative as she tried to barrel through Pete to get to Phillips and her only way of getting to the Doctor. "Bring it back! Now! We can't just leave him there."

Phillips grinned victorious as he made it closer to the doorway. The voice in his mind demanded that he get that disk as far away from Rose as possible, and he was only steps away from making sure that he could do just that.

A scruffy young lab tech in a white labcoat, however, had other ideas. Spencer dropped to a crouch and stuck his calf out to trip the man who was quite easily double his size. He let out a yelp of pain as the big man crashed down and dropped the jumpdisk. Spencer grabbed it as it fell from above and immediately frisbeed it toward Rose.

"There you go, Boss Lady," he hollered as he watched Rose snatch it from the air and spin to hold it against her chest. "Go back up there and get him."

Pete's voice hollered out in a demand for Rose to stop. She gave him a helpless, yet apologetic look as she slapped the face of the jump pad. Within a half-second, she was back on board the exploding Sontaran Command ship.

The deck shook violently below her feet. There were sparks and fires blasting all around her. Sontaran men fell and writhed at her feet. Rose took no notice. Her eyes searched through the smoke for one man.

She yelled for him through the smoke and haze. She held her arm across her nose and mouth as she stalked over upturned consoles in search of him. She knew her time was extremely limited and at any time the final explosion was going to obliterate everything. Her eyes stung and she could barely breathe. The only sound she was able to make was to call for him.

Through the smoke and haloed by the light of a fire, she finally saw him. He stood alone in a low stoop, his arms lightly splayed to his side. The line of his coat, and the brown of his pinstripe suit stood out through the haze, and as she let her eyes lift to the silhouette of his spiked hair and his firm, strong jaw, she torpedoed herself through the space left between them.

The Doctor didn't seem at all surprised to see her hurtling through the air toward him. He smiled wide and braced for her impact with his arms opened wide to receive her body against his.

Behind her the shockwave ripple of the final explosion propelled her forward, and she collided against him hard enough for them both to spin in the air. She hit the face of the jump pad and threw her arms around him.

Together, Doctor and Rose rolled across the Torchwood Command Station floor. He held her against his chest as he skidded along the floor on his back only stopping when the two of them collided with Pete Tyler's legs.

The Doctor braced himself for what might come next, because he knew beyond all doubt that him sending her away – yet again – had to have upset her. Oh, and it had. He could feel it. Rose's body was taut against him, not moving and not holding him back in return. He could feel her controlled breaths filling in and out of her chest, slowly leveling and deepening.

"Rose?"

She climbed off him slowly and drew herself to her full height. He remained on the floor on his back and looked up at her. He offered her his most gratefully thrilled smile.

"You are _amazing._"

She held her hand down to him. "Get up," she growled in order.

Oh. Yes. She was mad.

"Yes. Quite right," he mumbled as he took hold of her hand and grunted as he hauled himself through bruising hips and shoulders to a stand. He didn't think it anywhere near appropriate to stand at his full height in front of her. Especially not as she was doing her darndest right now to heighten herself an extra inch or two. He settled with a slouch as his hands found his trouser pockets. "Thank you."

She shifted slightly. "Come with me."

"Rose."

"_Not_ a request!"

He understood that she wanted to talk, and it was a discussion best not held in the presence of the Torchwood Control personnel. He obediently followed, and wasn't thinking when he instinctively reached forward to take her hand in his. Their fingers touched. Rose froze in place.

Was there a Gallifreyan equivalent for _Oh Shit_?

He felt it long before he heard it. Her hand struck across his cheek in a blinding movement so fast he had no way of moving to lessen the blow. The strike threw his face off to the side, and left him in a lean away from her. When the crack rang out in the room, he could feel the vacuum of inhaled gasps from the people still left in the room.

Rose brought her face close to his, hovering close to his ear. She watched the reddening imprint of her hand on his tightly wincing cheek. "You don't _ever_ get to do that to me again, do you understand?"

He remained in his lean, but brought his face to hers. His voice was soft, yet croaky. "I just wanted you safe, Rose."

She grabbed at the lapels of his blazer and snapped his face up to look at him directly in the eyes. "In case you haven't learned by now, Doctor. Being with you, _unsafe,_ is where _I_ want to be."

He resisted the urge to press his lips to hers. She still seemed mad, and wasn't completely sure if kissing her now was the best option. He swallowed, kept his hands in his pockets, and rocked ever so slightly toward her. "I'm sorry."

Rose worked her jaw and locked her grip even tighter on his lapel. Her eyes darkened as he gave her his most boyish, wounded, apologetic look. She swallowed hard as she felt the most feather light touch of his fingers against her elbow. "Home?" she asked in a voice so quiet, and so very full of invitation.

He nodded quickly and spoke over a thick swallow. "Yep."

She dropped her hand to clutch his tightly. "Run?"

He grinned. "Oh yes."


	11. January 1, 2005

A/N: Hopefully this is where things may get a little interesting… I forgot to add that the very first part of this (In case you couldn't notice) was knicked directly from the "End of Time" episode where the Doctor sees Rose for the last time. So cred defiitely has to be sent out to which ever one of the delicious DW writers penned that bit!

~~oooOOOooo~~

The New Year's air had a definite biting chill in it that Rose Tyler wasn't quite prepared for. A promise of mild temperatures and clear skies from the nightly weather forecaster made Rose choose a light hoodie over a jacket. She added a long scarf and floppy beanie to the ensemble, and was thankful for that little bit of fashion choice. There was no mildness to the evening. No clear skies. Snow! Bloody snow!

Meteorology – the only career choice where it was perfectly okay to get it wrong more often than right.

Rose hugged at herself as she strode toward the Powell Estate alongside her mother lamenting the _Murphy's Law_ evening that had befallen her on the very first day of a brand new year. What a terrific start.

"Too late now," she groused softly. "I've missed it. Midnight. Mickey's going to be calling me every minute. This is your fault!"

Jackie Tyler closed her fists, walking with straight arms as though it would warm her. "No, it is not," she answered indignantly. "It's Jimbo. He said he was gonna give us a lift and then he said his axle's broke. I can't help it!"

Rose rolled her eyes. "Get rid of him, Mum! He's useless!"

"Listen to you! With a mechanic." She lowered the pitch of her voice, and stopped walking to turn to her daughter. "To be fair though. In my time of life, I'm not gonna do much better.

Rose gave a sympathetic rub to her mother's shoulder. "Don't be like that. Never know, there could be someone out there."

Jackie looked up longingly to the sky. "Maybe. One day." She gave a small, half smile. After a moment, realization hit and her smile spread broadly across her face. "Happy New Year!"

Rose grinned. "Happy New Year!" She pulled her mother into a tight hug, clutching her tightly before she pulled away and pointed a cheeky finger at her. "Don't stay out all night!"

Jackie was already off. She answered without looking back. "Try and stop me."

Rose gave a smile and a light shake of her head as she held herself tighter and walked briskly toward home. She passed through a shadowed section of the estate, and jumped slightly at the sound of a moan from deep inside the shadows.

Her face creased in concern to see a handsome face screwed up tight in pain. "You all right, mate?"

The man managed to say, "yeah." But it was clear it took effort to do so.

She shuddered in the cold, but eyes him with concern. "Too much to drink?"

"Something like that. "

She smiled knowingly. "Maybe it's time you went home."

He dismissively agreed with her.

Rose had to get inside. She was slowly becoming a popsicle and this conversation had to end. She offered him a cheerful smile. "Anyway. Happy New Year!"

"And you."

She turned quickly on her heel and readied to bounce away through the doorway, up the stairs, and into the warmth of her flat. His voice, however, called back after her. She turned reluctantly, not wanting to be rude, but becoming irritated at being so cold.

"What year is this?"

Her eyes widened, but she kept the smile in place – or was it a grimace against the cold? "Blimey, how much have you had?" She watched him shrug. "2001. January the first."

"2005," he managed thoughtfully. Perhaps with mild surprise. "Tell you what." There was pain in his voice; broken as though spoken through tears. "I bet you're going to have a really great year."

"Yeah?" Her eyes locked on to his smile. She held for just a moment before the cold bit at her again and she began to move. "See ya!"

Rose ran quickly through the snow. She spared the stranger a glance through the window as she ran up the stairs. Cute. If she had to encounter a creepy stranger in the middle of the night, he may as well be at least slightly handsome.

She chuckled at her train of thought as she shucked off her jacket and rubbed at her arms to warm up. She walked into the bathroom and looked into the mirror as she prepared to go through her nightly routine of make-up removal, brushing her teeth and using the bathroom. Her eyes widened at the reflection looking back at her.

The man from the estate grounds. The one who had too much to drink. He looked back at her from the other side of the mirror. Tears rimmed his eyes and he held a lost and devastated look upon his face. His breath quickened, deepened.

"I don't wanna go."

A light began to glow across his skin. His face and hands glowed. He panted quickly and deeply as though awaiting the inevitable, and then threw his head back with an almighty yell as light burst from within him.

Rose screamed.

"Doctor! No!"

~~oooOOOooo~~

The Doctor was downstairs in the kitchen tinkering with his second attempt at a Sonic Screwdriver and lamenting to absence of bananas in the fruit bowl when he heard Rose scream from their bedroom. There was no second thought in his mind as he shoved the chair backward across the floor with enough force for it to topple backward and launched up the stairs.

He made it to the doorway, and paused for only a second with his hand locked around the frame. Rose writhed on the bed, her forehead beaded with sweat and her voice yelling with agony on a level he would never be able to explain.

"Rose!" he yelled as he leapt onto the bed and put a hand on each shoulder to snap her to wakefulness. "Rose! Wake up."

Her eyes flashed open and her breath flew into her with a hard gasp. Her breath held as though refusing to release and only did so when she managed to focus on his panicked expression.

"Doctor," she yelped tearfully as she threw herself against his chest in a hug. Her hold tightened, her head changed positions against him with every breath, every fought sob. "It's you. You're here."

"Of course I am," he assured gently as he pulled her much more firmly against him. "Right here. Not going anywhere."

"But," she hiccupped as she pulled back from him. "But you were there. I was there. It was so real. You." She looked into his face with a look of terror. "Oh my God. You regenerated." She hiccupped again. "But you didn't want to."

He rubbed at her arms. "Rose. It was a dream. Just a dream. I'm here. We both know that I'm not ever going to regenerate. What you saw was just a dream."

"No. It was too real." She shook her head and pressed the heels of her hands into her eyes. "Why would you come back to when I didn't know you," she asked without looking at him. "Why were you there?"

He was confused. "Where, Rose? Why was I _where_?"

She wiped at her eye with the back of her hand. "New Years, 2005. Why did you come back?" She swallowed. "You talked to me, Doctor. You needed help, but you didn't ask me. Why wouldn't you let me help you?"

He frowned. "Rose," he warned firmly. "It was a dream. That's all. It isn't real. It's just an involuntary succession of images, ideas, emotions inside your mind. That's all."

She shook her head angrily. "No," she snarled. "It was _real_. You were _there. _I _saw_ you_."_

Arguing probably was not the very best method of talking her down right now, but the Doctor had to press into her that it was all just a creation of her mind. There was no way that she saw him in 2005 before she'd even met his ninth version. He'd remember it if he had, and The Doctor – even in his darkest, loneliest, moments after losing her during Canary Wharf – had never entertained the idea of travelling back in time just to see her. He certainly _never _would have dared break the laws of time to actually talk to her. So there was no way. None.

Unless…

Oh-h-h. No-o-o.

He _hadn't_?

He _wouldn't_. Would he?

No-o-o.

The fully Time Lord Doctor must have broken the rules and crossed the time streams to see her. He was creating new memories inside her mind. _But why?_ What would make him do something so stupid? Did he need help? Had something happened?

He took both of her hands and held them loosely against his thigh. "Okay Rose. Tell me what you remember. Let me see if I can help you make sense of it."

She nodded and let the last of her terrified sobs subside into the back of her throat. She took a breath and raised her face. "I was walking with mum. It was snowing. We'd gotten stuck at the Estate because Jimmy's car broke down and we couldn't get a lift." She let her head tilt downward and took her eyes from his to concentrate on her memory. "There was no one on the street. Nothing. No. _Wait_. The TARDIS. I walked past the TARDIS." She looked back at him. "I didn't even notice it, Doctor. I walked right past it like it was nothing."

He nodded in understanding. "It's okay, Rose. You didn't know what it was back then. You weren't supposed to notice it."

Her brow creased and she nodded. "I know, but I feel like I should, you know?"

"I know."

She let out a breath. She was calming quickly. "And anyway. So I walked down to where the flat is. And you were there." She looked at him with wide and insistent eyes. "You were _right_ there, in the side, in the shadows."

He tried to shake the image of a stalking Time Lord hiding in the shadows like a creep. "And?"

Her hand flew to her mouth. "Oh my God. I thought you were a drunk. You could barely stand."

The doctor's eye twitched. Recreational drinking wasn't something he typically indulged in. "Drunk, Rose, or injured?"

"Either or," she admitted with an apologetic look and tip of her shoulder to her ear. "At the time I thought you were drunk. But." Her look turned to one of urging. "Do you remember?"

The Doctor shook his head. "No, Rose. I never went back to see you. I couldn't."

She actually slumped at that. "Time Laws and all that, yeah?"

He lifted her chin with the crook of his index finger. "No, Rose. I didn't because I wouldn't have been able to handle letting you go again."

"So definitely not you then?"

"No, Rose," he said with unnatural softness. "Not me."

Tears filled her eyes. "So it was _him._"

The doctor nodded. "Looks like it."

"But why?" Her voice was barely above a whisper.

The Doctor closed his eyes for a moment. He took a breath, opened his eyes and touched his hand to her shoulder. "To say good bye," he suggested softly. "Maybe he knew that his regeneration was coming and he wanted to see you one last time before he became a new man."

Rose quickly moved forward and buried herself into his bare chest. She rolled her head to let her ear press against his chest. "So he's dead?"

He let out a sad breath. "Time Lords don't die, Rose. They regenerate. He's fine, whoever he's become."

"Will he remember us?"

"Of course he will." He swallowed. "I remember everything. Everyone. Same man, just a different face, remember?"

Her face hardened and she shook her head against his chest. "No you're not. You and Nine were very different men."

"With the same love for the same woman," he offered gently. He lay them both back down onto the bed and leaned over her with a smile as she so innocently looked back up at him. "Your beautiful face, and the feelings I have for you are going to be with him no matter how many times he regenerates."

He reached up to brush her fingertips against his cheek. "Do you love me, Doctor?"

"Yes," he promised as he dropped his mouth to her collar bone and breathed hotly against her cool skin.

"Tell me," she urged with an arch of her back that invited him to move atop her.

He moved to settle himself between the part of her legs and kissed at her neck. "I love you."

She took her hand in his. "No, Doctor. Not like that."

He raised his head to give a confused look, and only managed to offer her a wide-eyed and shocked gaze as she brought his hand to her face and crudely tried to position it for him to touch her mind.

"I want you to show me, Doctor. Show me that I can't be forgotten." She couldn't fight the tears that rolled form the corners of her eyes. "Please."

"Rose?" His voice held apprehension and slight warning. He wanted to, _oh absolutely yes_, he wanted to do this. He would give away every remaining regeneration – and even most of his past ones - to hear this request come from her. But, this was love making Gallifreyan-style, and he wasn't completely sure that in her current state of mind she would be able to handle it. "You know what it means for me to do this, yeah?"

She nodded frantically, her breath drawing in and out of her shakily. "Yes, Doctor."

"Are you sure?"

He licked at his lip. His entire core was burning in anticipation. His mind flickered with want and need. "I'll know everything about you, Rose. Everything. No secrets."

A swirling light of amber swam in her eyes, "It's time that you did."


	12. TARDIS

A/N: Again, not a techie, okay? Just bluffing my way through.

~~oooOOOooo~~

The Doctor sat on the edge of the bed with his legs swung over the side and his feet planted firmly on the floor. His elbows dug sharply into his knees as he supported his currently heavier-than-ever head in his hands. Still naked, and still damp with sweat and still shuddering from climax, the Doctor hadn't even begun to try to make sense of anything that was currently cursing through his head. He hadn't even tried to come to terms with the fact that for the very first time, in all of the 900-odd years that he had been mature enough to engage in love making – matrimonial or recreational – he had actually found himself on an emotional level so insanely debilitating that it had brought him to tears.

He was somewhat thankful that Rose didn't understand his native language. She didn't need to hear how he had begged her – _begged her_ – to take him for all eternity, through this regeneration, through any future regenerations, through all of time and space and to the very ends of the universe … By Rassilon … He offered her his very heart and soul. Marriage? Yeah, that offer was put on the plate as well, but her idea of a human union of rings and _I do's_ didn't even come close to the offer he'd presented her with. He wanted to have his name branded in light upon her palm, to give her a permanent life union that would truly be _till death do us part_. To give himself to her, and only her, forever.

Since when did he become such an incredible _Sally_? He, The Doctor, the Time Lord Renegade, the man forever running. What had happened to him to make him so unbelievably love struck that he would make such promises without even thinking?

Love.

Such a _Human _word. Such a _Human_ emotion.

On Gallifrey, he didn't even know if any such emotion existed any more. He'd never really seen such devastating need between two people on his own planet as he had on Earth. Well, at least not within the houses of the Time Lord Empire, anyway. Marriage was purely political. Connections were made, some strengthened, some evolved into something more. Not many, but he presumed it happened.

_I love you._ That phrase he knew did not exist in his language. He had curiously searched his mind, and in the archives on the TARDIS looking for the Gallifreyan equivalent of _I love you_ back when he was Number Nine and began to experience moments of jealousy and longing for his pretty blonde companion_._ The best he could find was a promise of _my hearts beat for you_.

Close enough, he supposed at the time. It was sufficient. That was, until the incident at the game station. There he was, stuck alone inside the 500th level. Surrounded by Daleks and lorded over by the Emperor. He faced his demise at the death ray of his most formidable adversary. He accepted it. He was ready to die. He knew that Rose was safe, and that she would live a _fantastic _life without him, so he was okay with it.

But Rose didn't do what he had intended for her to do. She didn't listen to him and do as he asked her to do. Instead, she tore apart his ship, looked into the very heart of the TARDIS and inhaled the entire vortex, almost guaranteeing her death, to come back for him. She told him that she wanted him safe; _her Doctor_, _protected_; and it was at that very moment that he understood that the promise of his hearts beating for her sorely underrated the true emotion. Shit, with her sacrifice, even the Human equivalent didn't come close.

Even dying for her seemed to be less than worthy – perhaps if he didn't regenerate it might in a small way.

And even now. Now. After everything. There was no possible lyrical way to express this …This …

He rubbed at his brow with his thumb and smiled to himself. Why was he even bothering to try to name it?

Behind him, nestled deeply in her pillows and snuggled underneath their duvet, Rose whimpered his name while she slept deeply. He leaned back to kiss her on the temple. He whispered his devotion into her ear, and sat back up with a stretch and a groan. Knowing that sleep wasn't going to come any time in the near future, the Doctor used his toes to pick up his pajama pants from the floor and slowly pulled them up over his hips. He tied the ties only enough to let the pants sit just high enough on his hip to provide him a little dignity, and then scratched at his hair as he made his way back downstairs to pick up where he had left off on his new Sonic Screwdriver.

As he entered the hallway toward the kitchen, however, a blinding series of images came into his mind that drove him to his knees. He held the doorframe for support against collapsing completely and looked up to the ceiling as his mouth gaped in absolute confusion.

Pages of crudely drawn Circular Gallifreyan symbols and TARDIS coral structure blue prints shot through his mind. Teachings from his former regeneration sounded from each corner of his mind, instruction and demands, confusion and pain. Bright searing light and the Time Vortex itself building and burning. A number. A code: 030705

And with a gasp, it was gone.

The Doctor fell completely onto both knees. He panted out breaths of utter confusion while he covered his eyes with his hand.. What in Rassilon had all that been? For sure n one of those images were memories. They couldn't be. Not his anyway. Not, unless he had some serious memory gaps – which he most certainly did not. What he was seeing was something else entirely. Something from the mind of his beloved Rose Tyler.

But. If his former regeneration was buried inside her memories and the Doctor didn't remember any of it. Then who was he; and what was he doing with Rose?

He spun in place on the floor and leapt up to run up the stairs and get dressed. Whatever was going on, the answers were at Torchwood.

~~oooOOOooo~~

Spencer was face-down on his keyboard, drooling from the lip and scratching at his behind when the Doctor strode in through the doorway. He paused for a second with a somewhat amused look on his face as he toyed with just what option he was planning to take in alerting the young lab tech to his presence in the room.

On one hand, he could move about quietly and let the kid continue to sleep.

On the other, he could smack his hand down on the table and scare the bejeezus out of him.

An option somewhere down the middle suggested that the Doctor could take a more respectful and nurturing approach and lightly wake the lad and tell him that he should have knocked of several hours ago and to scoot off and enjoy his weekend.

_But._ The Doctor being the doctor, he opted for door number two. He gave the table beside Spencer's head a loud thump.

"Allo Spencer!" He called loudly. "Fancy seeing you here."

Spencer gave a horrified, sleepy, yelp as his head shot up off the keyboard. "Whatever I did, I didn't do it," he spluttered.

The Doctor gave a toothy and playful grin as he waited for Spencer to – at the very least – wipe the drool off his cheek. "Whatever I did, I didn't do it," he repeated slowly. "Not the most believable of defenses, but if it's worked for you in the past, good for you." He took a bite of his banana and leaned his elbows on the table across from Spencer.

Spencer finally registered just who it was that had so spectacularly interrupted his beauty sleep. "Oh, hey Doc."

"You do know that Five PM was eight hours ago, right?"

Spencer pointed at a second banana sticking out of the Doctor's pocket. "Yeah. And you do know that too many bananas can block up your system, right?"

The Doctor eyeballed the half-eaten fruit in his hand. "Oh. Well. That might explain a few things, then." After a moment he shrugged and took another bite. He spoke around his mouthful. "Why are you still here, has Rose got you working overtime?"

"Nah," Spencer answered inside a long stretch of his arms over his head. "Pete, actually." His eyes flared as he caught himself. "Nah, I mean. I'm just finishing up before the weekend."

The Doctor took the last bite of his banana and tossed the peel into the trash receptacle at his side. "Pete's got you doing what?"

"Nothing?"

"When you answer a question with a question, especially a one word statement posed as a question, you immediately look guilty," the Doctor challenged. "So. Spencer. What's Pete got you doing, then?"

"You're pretty nosey, aren't you?"

The Doctor nodded. "I find that being in the know can sometimes come in pretty handy."

"And I'm also going to assume that if I don't tell you what you want to know that you will needle me until I do."

"Assumption pretty close to correct," he answered with a smile. "So?"

Spencer rolled out a knot in his shoulder. "Since the Sontaran thing a couple months back, Pete got some suspicions that all is not well within the Torchwood ranks. He's asked me to look a little deeper into a few select people."

The Doctor pursed his lips and nodded. "Rose and I aren't on that list are we?"

Spencer shook his head. "Nah. Only as a commonality between potential suspects." He grabbed his coffee cup from the table and took a long draw, wincing at the ice-cold liquid inside. "Oh, damn. How long's this been here?"

"What do you mean _commonality_," the Doctor asked evenly.

Spencer shrugged, and took another swig from his hours old coffee. "Commonality," he began with a tease. A sharing of features or characteristics in common. Or possession or manifestation of common attributes."

"Thank you for that definition, Sir Oxford of Dictionary," The Doctor responded blandly. "What I asked was what do you mean by Rose and I having a commonality with potential suspects? If we aren't on the suspect list, then that has to mean that Rose is in danger."

Spencer saw the tick in the Doctor's eye and held up a hand quickly. "No. No. Calm the beast a moment. That isn't what it means at all." He took another sip of coffee and winced again. "Oh. God. I've got to get a new one of these." He stood up to walk to the Keurig machine on the counter at the wall. "Pete," he continued. "Got his tie all twisted because there were more than a couple of unanswered questions from the Sontaran bit, and he wants them answered."

The Doctor followed Spencer with his eyes as he moved about making a new coffee. "What kind of questions?"

Spencer turned and pressed his backside into the table as he waited for the Keurig machine to heat up. "You and Rose, you never came up against the Sontarans when you were together, did you?"

He shook his head. "No. I was with Donna the last time I saw them." He looked thoughtful a moment. "Martha – who was with me before Donna – called me in for help."

Spencer looked quite honestly shocked. "Were these girls before or after Rose?"

"After."

Spencer didn't know whether to laugh with pride, or clock the guy for being a dog. "Wow," he managed finally. "So while Rose was trying her all to get back to you, you were playing up with other girls." He looked to the Doctor with disbelief. "Were there any more, or did you just stick to the two?"

The Doctor flicked a brow. "I'm not sure I follow your line of thought right now, Spencer, but yes, I regularly had female companions travelling with me." The light went on in his head. "Oh. OH! No. No, Spencer. Not in the way that you've got to be thinking. None of them were ever like that."

"Just her, right?"

The Doctor smiled. "Just her, Spencer. Just Rose."

Spencer nodded slowly and turned to prepare his coffee. He spoke without turning around. "So. Then. Who's TARDIS?"

That was kind of out there. "Excuse me?"

Spencer pulled the steaming cup to his mouth and turned back around to face him. "Who is TARDIS? Sounds kind of Asian."

"Time and Relative Dimension in Space," the Doctor answered smoothly. "TARDIS isn't a who, she's more of a what." He paused. "Well. She could be a _who_ if you factor in the sentient nature of the girl. Alive, but not. But then again, she did have her stroppy moments." He gave a grin. "If it has boobs or a time vortex matrix you're going to have problems, _am I right_?"

Spencer rolled his eyes. "Never figured you as the crude type, but, yeah. Accurate."

He shrugged. "Too much time spent with Human men I expect. They will rub off on you."

Spencer levelled him a look. "Then _what_ is she?"

The Doctor frowned and leaned back onto the table. "She was my ship," he answered without hesitation. "My faithful companion for, oh, 900 years give or take a century or two. Hard to really accurately determine, time, when you're in a time machine. Every day seems to just run into the next."

Spencer looked confused. "Oh hang on. Rose referred to her as your real true love."

"First love, I guess," the Doctor corrected. "In a purely platonic family sense of course." A wistful smile. "With me through thick and think that girl. I miss her." His expression shifted to curiosity. "Why do you ask about my TARDIS?"

Spencer shrugged. "Rose might've mentioned her when you two were declaring intention of beginning the new Time War."

The Doctor winced. He'd tried for forget about that one. "Ahh. Yes. We've since signed a peace treaty."

"So she told you about her, then?"

The Doctor paused. He considered that question a moment. No. Rose had not mentioned the TARDIS for months. He licked at his lip. "We have no secrets," he said carefully.

"So she was able to tell you where she was, then." He looked slightly put out. "And she hasn't taken _me_ to see the almighty beast?"

"I wouldn't call her a _beast_," he said quietly, confusion in his voice. "Maybe on the inside, but outside she's no bigger than a telephone box." His finger tapped on the table as he considered the options. Could there have been a dimensional splice and the Ninth regeneration made it through and sought out Rose's help? Could that explain the thoughts he saw in Rose's mind? No. _But_? No. He'd remember that, right?

His head was beginning to hurt. He slouched and pressed the butts of his hands to his eyes. "Spencer?"

"Yeah, Doc?"

He maintained the slouch and kept his hands at his eyes. "You haven't seen any visitors come in here. 'Bout six foot tall, big ears, cropped hair, bit of a daft looking face, wears black jeans and a leather jacket?" He slid his chin up so that he looked through his fingers. "Speaks with a really heavy Northern accent? Kind of a rough talking bloke."

Spencer raised a brow and gave a laugh. "No. And trust me, a guy like that isn't real hard to miss."

"No. He isn't." He huffed. His brow creased. "Oh I don't know. I don't get it."

"Oh," Spencer sang. "The Doctor doesn't _get_ something. Quick! Someone call an evac, the apocalypse is coming!"

The Doctor let out a long suffering sigh. "Honestly, I don't know how Rose manages to make it through the day and get any work done with such an accomplished comedian working at her side."

Spencer pointed a finger at him. "Sarcasm is the lowest form of wit, you know that?"

"Yeah," he breathed distractedly. "It is."

Spencer frowned. "You Okay, Doc? You've lost your steam."

The Doctor gave himself a shake. "Oh. Yeah. Yeah. I'm good." He cleared his throat as he thought back to the argument he had with Rose, and of something he'd heard Spencer mention to Rose: The existence of her Gallifreyan doodles. His eyes shot wide and his entire demeanour switched to that of an excited young boy ready to receive his Christmas present.

"Spencer," he spluttered quickly. "You mentioned that Rose was writing in Gallifreyan, and that you'd kept all of them somewhere."

Spencer looked momentarily caught out and unaware, but he fast shifted to realization. "Oh, the circles. Yeah, I remember you saying they were in your language. Hold up, I'll get them for you." He smirked as he jogged to a locked filing cabinet underneath the coffee machine. "I'd love to get a first hand interpretation of them. It's all swirly jibberish to me."

The Doctor rocked impatiently from foot to foot as he cleared a bench to be able to spread out the drawings. Once Spencer returned with the papers, the Doctor immediately began to spread them out and across the bench.

"Right," he muttered as he pulled his glasses from his pocket and slipped them loosely on the bridge of his nose. He cupped his chin and leaned down in a thoughtful manner. "So what have we got here?" His brows knitted together as he began to reorganize the images. "Oh dear," he breathed as he did some more shuffling. "Oh. No. _Really_? No. _No_."

Spencer looked on with worry as he watched the Doctor move around drawings with urgency and he muttered negatives under his breath. "Doc, what's wrong?"

The Doctor covered his mouth with his hand and stood up straight. "That should be impossible. There is no way that could be achieved."

"Doc?"

He leaned back down over the drawings, and pointed through a series of circles as though working out calculations in his head. "Well. The math's right. But just where did she…?" He leaned over to pull another slip of paper and slipped it in between two others. He appeared satisfied that everything was in the right place and gripped either side of the table to analyze the complete array. His jaw hung very slightly as his eyes scanned everything before him.

Spencer looked to him, then to the table, then back up to him, and then to the table again. He leaned forward slightly to look them all over for himself. None of it made any sense to him. It all looked like a six year old had gotten hold of a Spirograph and gone to town with it.

He looked up to the Doctor. "So?"

The doctor wasn't even looking at the writing any more. His eyes were slightly above the line of the table and he simply stared at nothing. After a very long moment his mouth closed so he could swallow. His voice was very meek and scratchy when he finally spoke. "Do you think that this is directly related to her work," he looked to the vault door. "In there?"

"It has to be," Spencer said with a shrug. "She comes out of there with handfuls of those things, or starts scribbling them at her desk. Why?" He urged. "What does it all mean?"

The Doctor wasn't sure that he wanted to move from his position. His eyes remained on the door to the vault. "They are the mathematical equations for the design of a sustained power system for a TARDIS, including matrix designs and base coding information." He inhaled a shaking breath. "As well as power transfer equations for Vortex energy."

"As in the Time Vortex, Doctor?"

"But that can't exist in this dimension," he muttered distractedly as his face screwed up in confusion. "It's impossible." His face lengthened again. "And, _well_, the power inside this equation would require a source of _unimaginable_ energy. And if you could harness that amount of raw energy, if there's even one error in these numbers, it could destroy half the planet." He moved quickly from his rigid stance and found himself at the access code pad beside the door. His hand shook as it hovered over the number pad.

Part of him hoped that way lay beyond these doors wasn't what he thought it was. The inherent danger of an inexperienced person trying to put all of this together was beyond nuclear. Beyond Supernova.

The rest of him, however…

He punched in the code 070305 and closed his eyes in preparation as the door released with a crack and a hiss. With a white-knuckled grip he pulled on the steel handle of the door and hauled it open.

Warm orange amber light welcomed the two men, and they stepped inside with gaping jaws as the small vault expanded within to a massive expanse of space. The walls were lined with brilliant coral arms twisted and curled into a living, thriving, growing structure.

Spencer couldn't hide the awe in his voice. "What. Is. That?"

The Doctor fought the lump in his throat. "Spencer. Meet the TARDIS."


	13. Ten vs Nine

A/N: Is it really Ten versus Nine, or Ten versus TARDIS? I dunno...

~~oooOOOooo~~

Spencer was the first to break the frozen-in-place stance that had locked the two men in position. Momentarily stalled because of the sheer complete fricking awesomeness of the structure before him, Spencer couldn't contain his thrill when he was finally able to move.

"This. Is. Sensational!" He cheered as he ran toward the mushroom-shaped structure at the centre of the space directly in front of them. "I mean, damn. This is completely out of this world! Pun absolutely intended." He ran his fingers along the dimpled surface and blew out a breath as he looked back to the Doctor. "Doc…" He stopped his words when he saw that the Doctor had not moved since making the introduction. "Doc, you all right?"

The Doctor gave a very minute shake of his head in response.

Spencer politely managed to squash some of his excitement. "So _this_ is the TARDIS? As in the spaceship ready to fly?"

The Doctor finally blinked and seemed to shake himself into consciousness. His face set into a light frown as he warily approached what he knew was the main control console of the ship. "This is her," he answered quietly. He lifted his hand with all the caution of a man looking to pet a venomous snake. "But she isn't ready for flight yet. She's not even close to ready."

Spencer watched the Doctor timidly set his hand down on top of the console. He bit at his lip to give the man a moment reacquainting himself with his ship and took his own moment to take it all in and look around. It didn't take him too long to utter the words that _every_ visitor to the TARDIS did.

"Hold on. Why is it so big in here?" He looked to the doorway. "I know for a fact that this room is not actually this big." He stretched out his arms as if taking mental measurements. "Nowhere near this damn big."

"Time Lord Technology," the Doctor said quietly.

Spencer looked doubtful. "What kind of _technology_ is capable of fitting something this gigantic into something that's a tenth of the size?"

"If you think she's big now, wait until she is fully grown," the Doctor muttered. His apprehension was beginning to wane and he was finding his voice once more as he took in more and more of the structure. "It's dimensional technology. The inside and the outside of the TARDIS are not in the same dimension."

Spencer flicked a brow. "Okay," he answered doubtfully with an extension to the end of the word. "And is this where you explain to me how we can walk from one dimension into another when all the walls between each are supposed to be closed? You know, because that's what you keep telling us."

The Doctor pressed his lips together as he digested the question. He hadn't had someone actually ask him to explain the technology in a very long time. "The TARDIS is its own dimension," he instructed. "It creates a dimension around herself based upon the, well, the container that it's housed in. In this case, the vault."

"Go on."

The Doctor moved around the main console, familiarizing himself with the layout. "Look at it as Perception and perspective, Spencer. The TARDIS creates a dimension around her that is at enough of a distance from its housing that perception allows it to fit into any sized container that she wishes to." He ducked underneath the console, sliding in on his back, to look up at the wiring. "Does that make sense to you?"

Spencer shook his head. "Not in the slightest."

The Doctor bit at his lip and crawled out from underneath the console to take a quick look around the clutter in the space outside the coral structure. He found two boxes, one smaller than the other and held them side by side. "One is bigger."

Spencer nodded. "Yeah?"

The Doctor held the smaller box toward Spencer, and held the larger box an arm length behind it. "Take a direct look from the box closest to you. Can you see the larger box?"

Spencer gave the Doctor a cut-eye look of doubt, but played along. With dramatic exaggeration, he closed one eye, stuck his tongue out of the side of his mouth and peered past the first box to see the other box.

"See," the Doctor commented with a smile. "It fits now." He set the boxes on the counter and slid on his back underneath the console once more to take a look. "You can make anything fit if it's dimensionally far enough away."

Spencer rubbed sheepishly at the back of his head. "I still can't wrap my head around it. But I'll trust you on it, because no other explanation would make any more sense." He wandered to the console and looked through the centre column down to the Doctor's face. "So she's set to get bigger than this?"

"Much," he answered as he pulled some of the wires and relocated them to a different connection. "My original TARDIS was in a Police Box…"

"Oh, that thing in the picture on Rose's desktop."

The Doctor looked up with a smile. "She has a photo on her computer?"

"Yeah man. Both of you grinning like Cheshire cats in front of a Blue Box."

"Oohh," he hummed appreciatively. "That's great." He went back to the wiring. "The interior of that box was so big, that it took me, once, twenty minutes just to get to the bathroom." He wore a toothy grin. "The old girl was mad at me for something and kept putting walls up in front of me. I walked through twenty five rooms before I found the one I needed." He coughed. "And by that time I needed it _really _bad."

Spencer smirked. "You look pretty at home down there messing with Rose's work, Doc," Spencer remarked as he leaned against the console. "I know from experience that she will kick your sorry ass into another dimension if she finds out."

The Doctor pulled himself out from under the console and pushed himself up to a stand. He wiped his hands on his thighs. "Habit, I guess. I don't know how many hours I've spent underneath the console of this girl tinkering and fixing."

"Either you're a really bad mechanic, or you had some pretty severe insomnia."

"A little from column a, some from column B," he admitted. His face creased as he allowed the initial excitement at seeing the TARDIS fall to apprehension and hurt. "Why did she keep this from me, Spencer?"

Spencer shrugged. "Beats me. Maybe because she knew you'd tell her that it couldn't be done and so she wanted to preemptively prove you wrong?"

That made the Doctor chuckle. "Sounds like her, but." He inhaled hard. "No. That's not it."

Spencer leaned his rump against one of the coral struts. "I think the bigger question we have right now, Doc," he started quietly. "Is just where did she get the knowledge to do this? I'm a pretty well-versed guy, and I can swear to you up and down that none of this stuff even halfway makes enough sense for any instruction manuals to have been created for it."

"Not something you can pull from the internet," the Doctor agreed. "But neither are dimension canons, and Rose was able to assist in the creation of those."

"Smart for a blonde girl," Spencer remarked with a tease.

"Smart for any girl, boy, man or woman." He gave Spencer a proud look. "I _only_ take the _very best_ on board my TARDIS." He ran his hand along one of the struts. "And she was brilliant. So brilliant that I asked her twice. I _never_ ask twice."

"Asked her what?"

The Doctor looked to Spencer with a very serious expression. "To travel as my companion." He looked away. "She said _no_ the first time I asked her. By then I'd already seen just how fast she could think and calculate any situation. She'd already saved my life." He looked up to the ceiling in remembrance. "I hadn't even known her for 24 hours and she risked herself to save my life. She didn't even question it, second guess it. She just grabbed hold of that chain, and swung into danger – all to protect me. A daft, grumpy old man…" He looked back down. "So, after she said no, I left. But I couldn't bear to leave her. I came back and asked her again." He smiled. "She said yes, and ever since then she's done so much more than saved than just my life – she's saved my very soul."

"You truly love her, don't you?"

"I died for her once," he admitted. "And I'd do it again in a second. If love is a sufficient appellation for that, then yes. I love her." He took a cleansing breath. "By Rassilon, I love her."

"Then make it official, Man," Spencer urged.

"Yeah," he answered distractedly. "Quite right."

This conversation was taking a nosedive toward female bonding style territory, and Spencer simply had to get back adequate levels of testosterone as soon as was humanly possible. He coughed uncomfortably into his fist. "So back to the whys wheres whens and hows of this amazing structure you call TARDIS."

The Doctor's attention immediately caught. "Yes. Indeed. Just where and how did our brilliant, and brilliantly covert Rose Tyler gain knowledge of the Time Lords to be able to create a thriving TARDIS; and then hide it from a Time Lord," He cleared his throat uncomfortably. "Uh, _former_ Time Lord?"

"Rose Tyler didn't hide it," a gruff voice in a language not spoken in years answered. "I did. And for the love of all time and space do not refer to yourself as a _former_ Time Lord."

The Doctor heard Spencer's sudden intake of breath, and turned slowly to the sound of the voice behind him. He could immediately tell the identity of the individual, but hoped beyond all hope that he was wrong.

He wasn't.

"You. Are. Kidding. Me," he growled as he took in the image of his former regeneration in the corner of the TARDIS.

Spencer's eyes were wide, confused, pained, and slightly terrified. "Who the Hell are _you_?"

The image of the Ninth Doctor stepped out from the protective arms of the Coral structure to stand face to face with his Tenth self. "I've been wondering how long it would take for you to find me."

The switch from English to Gallifreyan was so transitionally seamless that the Doctor didn't even realize that he'd moved to his native tongue. "You are an interface," he remarked coolly. "Not actually my former self."

"Astute observation," Nine intoned blandly. He looked toward Spencer. "He shouldn't be here."

"I wouldn't have found you without his help," Ten assured. He did, however,, look toward the stunned human in the room. "Spencer, this is…"

"The guy you asked me about earlier," he interrupted with worry. "Do you need me to call security, Doc? Cause I can have someone here pretty bloody quick."

The doctor shook his head. "This is just an image; an interface; created by the TARDIS to communicate." He frowned. "Which you've never actually done before, old girl."

"I've never needed to before," Nine answered coolly. "It has become necessary in this these critical moments that I draw the additional energy to create an interface to be able to communicate with my Wolf. While brilliant, she does need my assistance to make sure I can be all I need to be."

"You could have come to me," Ten snapped. "Let the two of us do this together."

Nine shook his head. "No. You wouldn't have allowed my growth."

"How can you be so sure of that?"

Spencer raised his hand. "Uh, okay. You two aren't speaking my language. And seeing as the Doc's looking all pissed off, maybe you might want to give me a brief intro before I go pull a fire alarm or something."

The Doctor didn't look back at Spencer. "This, Spencer, is the image of my previous regeneration. The Ninth Doctor."

Nine's image looked to Spencer and switched to English laced with a heavy Northern accent. "I am the image of her first Doctor. The man who first took her hand – and ultimately her heart."

Ten switched immediately back to Gallifreyan. "You didn't deserve her."

"I died for her," he answered flatly. "What have you done for her lately?"

Ten pointed a finger at him. He opened his mouth to speak. He closed it again. "Spencer. Give us a moment, will you?"

"Go right ahead," Spencer muttered as he took a seat on a coral strut and folded his arms across his chest. "Not like I can understand a word you're saying." He held up a hand before either of the Doctors could tell him to leave. "Not going anywhere. This is Torchwood property, more importantly _property of RoseTyler_. I'm standing sentinel to protect it for her."

"If you wish," the Doctor said with a huff. He thrust his hands into his pocket and stalked around the image of Nine. "So. TARDIS. While I want to say that it is lovely to see you again, I do want to make sure that we're clear on my annoyance of you manipulating Rose for your own gain."

"Trust me when I say it was necessary."

The Doctor tapped his foot on the floor in irritation. "Necessary in what way?" He slid his glasses up tightly against the bridge of his nose and analyzed the image of Nine a moment. He let out an unimpressed snort. "Real clever using his image by the way."

"She trusts Nine like no other."

"She also trusts _you_," he challenged. "Using my Ninth image was unnecessary. All you needed to say was that you're TARDIS and she would have done anything you asked of her."

Nine shook his head and looked down. "Not _anything_. We were already working together as Rose and TARDIS. She was becoming fearful, and so I called upon Nine to help her. She listens to him. She learns from him. Her heart beats for him."

"Her heart is _mine_," he snapped back possessively. He suddenly digested the words and shot a concerned look toward Nine's image. "What do you mean by Rose becoming fearful of you?" His expression widened. "What are you asking of her?"

Nine was quiet for a moment. Finally, after what appeared to be an hour, but was in reality only a handful of seconds, he spoke. "Your brother has regenerated," he breathed carefully. "And with this regeneration fixed moments in time are in place and cannot be altered."

"Yes, yes," Ten groused with a dismissive wave of his hand. "Alteration of a fixed point in time can lead to a paradox that can tear and destroy the very fabric of time." He glared at Nine. "I am usually the one giving that lecture, so I am intimately aware of the repercussions of tampering with time lines."

"Then I want you to keep that very threat of an irreversible time paradox in mind as we continue this discussion," he warned. "What has begun cannot be undone, no matter what your heart wants."

"I really don't like where this is going."

"And neither do I, Doctor, but I am at Time's call and I have to answer." He waved his hand to a crudely positioned monitor atop the command console. It came to life, a blue screen with white, circular, images. "Those are my diagnostic readings. Where I am right now and where I need to be within six of these Earth months."

The doctor moved quickly to the screen and adjusted his glasses as he looked through the data on the screen. His scientific mind quickly analysed the information, and gave the young Doctor a flash of excitement. "This is absolutely _brilliant_," he remarked excitedly. "How you have managed to draw this much power and sustain your levels even as you exceed the normal growth rate of a typically grown TARDIS is _amazing_." His brows knitted together. "But it is still limited, isn't it? It's not enough to take you to becoming fully functional. And the Time travel. _Well_, I'm curious to see how you intend to draw upon energies of time when there is none to be drawn from in this…" he paused. "No-o-o." He looked at Nine with a threatening scowl. "You are _kidding_ me." He shoved at the corner of the monitor to twist it out of the way. "If you think, even for a second, that I am going to step back and let you even _try_, then you're sorely underestimating who I am."

"The process has already begun, Doctor."

"And it stops," he demanded with a growl and a punctuating point toward the floor. "Immediately."

"It can't be stopped."

"Don't give me that Time altering is bad bullshit," he snarled. "You can find another way to get your job done. Sacrificing Rose is not an option." He flicked up a finger of warning as Nine looked to counter. "I will destroy you before I allow you to hurt her." He pointed at the monitor. "And what you're suggesting is going to kill her."

Nine's lip curled. "There's no other way, Doctor. This is an alternate parallel where no other time energies exist."

"Then give it up," he snapped. "You're not getting anywhere near her ever again. I will see to it."

Nine folded his arms across his chest. "What has begun cannot be stopped," he reminded him. "That isn't just reflective of the set time points, but to what has begun within Rose. The Vortex energies are building and will continue to do so until it overtakes her completely."

His fist came down hard on the console. "What were you _thinking_," he demanded hotly. "You're going to kill her!" She shook his head, his hand, and paced angrily. "No. No. I'm not going to let you do this."

"She made her choice," Nine answered quietly. "This was her decision, not mine, not time's, not anyone. She made this decision alone."

The Doctor snarled an angry accusatory look at his former self. "With plenty of _gentle_ guidance from you, no doubt." He balled his hands into fists and shoved them into his trouser pockets. Oh, how he wanted to just strike out at the man in front of him. "What did you tell her? What did you promise her would happen if she did this for you?"

"I told her to let me die; to have a _fantastic life_," Nine answered shortly. "I sent her home from the Game Station and was specific in telling her that you were going to die, and she had to be home, be safe, and go on without us."

The Doctor's eyes flared wide with recollection.

Nine continued. "I did't tell her to rip open the heart of this ship and take into her the entire Time Vortex to come back to save you. I fought that action. I battled against her to prevent her exposure to the vortex."

"But she outsmarted all of us," the Doctor finished quietly. "She came back. She saved me again."

"She gave her life for you, Doctor."

The Doctor snapped a glare of argument to Nine, but said nothing.

"The Time Vortex is alive, Doctor. It is a living, thriving, life force energy. It is too strong for a human body to withstand."

"I know," he growled. "That's why I took it from her."

"It killed _you_, Doctor; a Time Lord of Gallifrey." He circled the Doctor. "Tell me. What did you think it did to her; a frail Human of Earth?"

The Doctor closed his eyes and dropped his head to the side.

"She was gone the moment she looked into my heart. Your actions only prolonged that death." His eyes narrowed dangerously. "We didn't save her, we just made her a fixed point in time."

"I saved her," he corrected sharply with a hiss through his teeth. "And she is alive, so very alive."

"For now, Doctor," Nine warned softly. "But Time is coming for her, and there's nothing that we can do to stop it."

The Doctor shook his head and stalked toward the monitor at the Control console. "No," he growled as he took the familiar position at the monitor and started to work through the information on the screen. "I'm not going to let that happen." His eyes flicked up to Nine. "I'm not losing her again."

"There's nothing we can do. It's impossible."

He snorted derisively. "You're forgetting one thing. I'm the Doctor. Impossible's what I do best."


	14. Coming up with a Plan

~~oooOOOooo~~

_Impossible's what I do best_

The Doctor slumped in front of the monitor nestled on the command console within TARDIS vault. He pressed his fingers into his eyes and then dragged them down his face to steeple them thoughtfully underneath his chin. The movement of his fingers pulled at his skin, and he used the motion to unnaturally open of his eyes to keep himself alert.

Three hours. For three hours he had been studying the data within the young TARDIS databanks. Three hours. Three hours and very little to show for it except to further illustrate the danger that Rose was facing.

Spencer snored loudly to his rear. The spritely young lab tech had found comfort two hours earlier as he lazed across one of the horizontal coral struts. Sounds of snoring, mixed with the occasional muttering and a snort or fart really wasn't helping with the Doctor's concentration. Twice within the past two hours, the Doctor had considered throwing something at the lad, or rudely awaking him with a demand to sod off and go home, but he held back. For what reason, exactly, he wasn't sure. Probably because the guy was one of those _special_ kinds of people he'd likely be okay with traveling a trip or two on the TARDIS.

Or he just needed company… The brooding image of his Ninth self had spent approximately ten minutes sulking in the corner before he'd disappeared completely to leave the Doctor to work alone.

And good show that, because the Doctor had spent more than one moment considering ways to wipe that image from the interface, or at the very least alter it a bit just for a laugh.

The Doctor gave a stretch, moaned, and rubbed his palms hard up and down his cheeks. He was exhausted. Completely and utterly mentally fatigued. He couldn't find it within him to close up and go home just yet. He wasn't any closer to coming to any form of viable solution to the problem at hand, and that was really beginning to piss him off.

A grunt and mumble from the sleeping Spencer, and a light went off in the Doctor's mind. Coffee! Oh yes. A coffee was just what he needed to wake up those synapses and give him that hit of energy, and maybe even a flash of inspiration. Spencer seemed to function quite spectacularly on his addiction to coffee; perhaps the Doctor could give it the old college try for himself.

He lumbered toward the Keurig machine, yawning and scratching at his head as he set about making himself a coffee. The Doctor – at least in this regeneration – really hadn't gone for coffee over tea at all. He found the smell of it to be quite off-putting, actually. But, the studies were conclusive. It was shown to improve alertness and function, and he sorely needed both at this juncture.

The clock on the wall told him it was now almost four in the morning. A glance at his reflection in the chrome finish of the small fridge told him the same thing. Four in the morning was the time for sleep and recuperation, not for sitting at a computer running through unfathomable calculations and scenario testing. He could – and likely should – just go back home, snuggle beside Rose in their bed, and get some much needed sleep to begin anew at a much more reasonable hour. But who was he kidding? He hadn't had any real substantial, uninterrupted, sleep in the last little while. Well. Actually, the last _long_ while. His human sleeping patterns of a six to eight hour stretch ended somewhere within his second month in this parallel. No wonder he was beat. On and off sleeping throughout the night, or napping, really wasn't doing him much good.

The Keurig hissed to tell him that the coffee was ready, and the Doctor padded quietly back inside the vault. He paused just inside the doorway and held the coffee to in front of his face as he looked upon the wonderful structure of the TARDIS. For all of the impending horror, he did have to admit that his beloved Rose Tyler had created the most beautiful of structures. Each artful curve and twist in the structure reminded him of her. Every bright amber limb and pulsing glow simply had to have been inspired by the very heart of Rose Tyler. She was perfection. He couldn't have done better himself.

He had a tired smile in place as he lifted the steaming cup of coffee to his mouth and drew back just enough to taste. Immediately he winced and motioned a gag at the acrid taste that kissed his tongue. "Oh. That is _disgusting_," he spluttered. He set the cup on a clear space on the console and continued to dramatically act out his disgust of coffee. "Why do these humans swill filth like this?"

"For the caffeine," Spencer moaned from his makeshift bed. He pointed at the Doctor's mug. "Now, if you aren't going to drink that, then gimme!"

The Doctor flicked a brow and walked the coffee over to Spencer. "There must be far more appetizing ways of getting caffeine into your system that by drinking that."

Spencer purred. "Nothing better than a coffee hit A.M."

"A Good cup of tea, made in the manner of the Tyler women, is a far more delightful method of blocking your adenosine receptors." He pursed his lips considering a good cup of tea a'la Rose Tyler.

"Blocking your _what _now," Spencer asked mid-yawn as he rubbed his eyes.

"Adenosine," the Doctor began lightly. "Is the chemical released in the human brain that causes fatigue and drowsiness by slowing down nerve cell activity and dilating the blood vessels in the brain." He cleared his throat and continued somewhat autonomously as he walked back to the console. "To a nerve cell, caffeine resembles adenosine. Caffeine therefore binds to the adenosine receptors, which prevents..." He slowed in his lecture. His head tilted thoughtfully down to one side. "The caffeine doesn't slow cell activity as does the Adenosine." He blinked. "The cells can no longer sense the Adenosine." His eyes flared wide. "That's it!"

"That's what," Spencer moaned, still sleepy but slowly finding wakefulness.

"Oh," the Doctor hissed with thrill through gritted teeth as he quickly approached Spencer, cupped his face, and gave him a big kiss on the mouth. "You. Are. Brilliant. _Brilliant!"_

"Yeah," he spluttered as he wiped at his mouth with the back of his hand. "Brilliant, and not swinging that way. I mean, yeah, okay, you're pretty, but I prefer chicks."

The Doctor wore a slightly maniacal grin as he dismissed Spencer's comment with a wave of his hand. He strode to the console and grabbed excitedly at his hair as he walked. "How didn't I see this before? It's obvious!"

Spencer slouched against the strut and drew back deep on his coffee. "Fill me in, Doc."

"We need to counter the vortex power that's building inside of Rose." He looked to the lab tech with a toothy grin. "I just need to find the right kind of _caffeine_ to do it."

"Hang on, we need to do _what_ now? What's this about Rose?"

Nine's voice thundered in from the shadows. "You're dealing with something a little more excessive than a bout of tiredness here, Doctor."

The Doctor narrowed his eyes as the image of Nine strode into the light. "Oh, and here he comes to rain on my parade. If you've got nothing helpful to add then sod off you pessimistic bastard."

Spencer moaned. "Okay. If you two are going to go back at it, then I'm just going to wander off and take a piss." He walked backward toward the doorway and pointed at them both. "Play nice or I'm calling Rose." He turned around and spoke over his shoulder. "I'll let her kick both your asses."

The Doctor watched Spencer leave and returned his attention to the computer. "This'll work, Nine. It will." His eyes flicked up angrily, and after a slight pause he spoke again. "Did you even consider any other possibilities when you decided to put this little plan of yours into action?"

He shook his head. "I did what had to be done. I knew at some point you'd find out and would do whatever it took to try to save her."

"Of course I would." The Doctor's eyes went back to the monitor. "But tell me. What kind of being will deliberately put the life of someone else at risk to serve their own purpose?"

"It's not _my_ purpose," Nine argued. "It's to save Time itself." His lip curled. "And I wouldn't judge if I were you. You destroyed an entire planet for the very same reason."

The Doctor froze in place. His lip lifted slowly in anger. "I had no choice," he snarled. "The universe as a whole would have been destroyed if I didn't stop that war."

"And did you look in to any other option, Doctor," Nine countered snidely. "Or did you go with the first one that you came up with?"

The Doctor glared angrily at the monitor. "I looked at every available option before I took that one," he snarled. "I did what needed to be done."

"As am I."

The Doctor peered over the top of the monitor to Nine. Anger masked the pain of the reminder. "And for this crime I am going to have her taken from me again, and again, and again."

"This hurts me, too, Doctor," he offered softly. "I love her as much as you do."

"Then help me help her," he begged quietly. "Please."

Nine dropped his head and thumbed at his nose. "We're looking at total regeneration at a cellular level," he muttered. "The Vortex power, once reactivated, is unstoppable."

"I stopped it once," he barked. "With a kiss. I kissed her and drew away all of that power." He pressed the butt of his hand into his forehead. "If I could do that with a kiss, then I am sure we can find something else with a bit more potency." He blew out a breath and rolled his eyes with incredulity. "The kiss of a Time Lord. Who knew?"

"This isn't a fairy tale where a kiss of true love is going to save her this time around," Nine challenged. "All you managed to do was draw off most of the vortex energies. What remained within her simply went into dormancy to wait for the …" He cleared his throat. "Never mind."

The Doctor stared straight ahead. "Saying _never mind_ is a mauve flag, you know that, right?"

"Meaning?"

"Well. I might very well have ignored anything else that you had to say." He slid his eyes down to the monitor. "But the words _never mind_ do tend to get one's attention. Typically it means that you want to hide something. And I hate it when people try to hide things from me." He pressed his hands into the console. "Because when people start to hide things, bad things always follow."

"This present situation being the perfect example."

"You're catching on," the Doctor muttered. He drummed his fingers on the console. "So. Tell me. Dormancy in preparation for _what_? Because I know for a fact that Time and space really couldn't care less about whether or not there is another TARDIS floating about the galaxy." He moved his eyes to Nine. "Why is it so important that you come to life?"

"Be careful." Nine managed to sound slightly hurt. "You sound like you don't want me."

"Not if it means I sacrifice Rose."

"A Time Lord without a TARDIS," Nine growled. "It's practically blasphemous."

"Well," he slid out of the side of his mouth. "It's a good thing that I have that human part of me to blame it on, then, Isn't it?" His eyes moved up. "Not so close to blasphemy, now, is it?"

Nine leaned down over the console to analyze the Doctor's face a moment. What he saw made him twitch with shock. "You truly believe that, don't you?" He stood up straight. "Well. This is something unexpected."

The Doctor wasn't completely close to listening to Nine as he moved through more information from the computer analysis. "What's that?"

Nine was quietly shocked. "You truly believe that you're half Time Lord, half Human."

The doctor punched at the single heart beating inside his chest. "One heart."

Nine slumped so dramatically that he almost resembled the apes that he often accused the humans of being. "And from _that_, you came to the conclusion that you're _half _human?" At Ten's nod, Nine rolled his eyes. "Do me a favour and humour me when I ask you to define the word _half _for me."

"_What_?"

"You heard me," Nine snapped back. "What is half?"

The Doctor growled. He didn't have time for this crap. "Half. Noun. Either of two equal corresponding parts into which something can be divided." He sniffed. "Old English, half or healf, of Germanic origin; related to Dutch half and German halb. The earliest meaning of the Germanic base was _side_."

"Very clever, Doctor. Now, with that definition, explain how" Nine didn't try to hide the disdain in his tone as he began to individually point out areas of the Doctor's body. "Time Lord brain. Time Lord eyes and cranial structure. Time Lord shoulders. Time Lord heart …" He pointed to the groin. "I would _hope_ Time Lord."

"Are you anywhere near the point that you're trying to make?"

Nine folded his arms across his chest, most smug. "You are 100% Time Lord, Doctor. Break it down to cellular level analysis and you will find that your cellular structure for every living part of you is Gallifreyan. I don't know how or why you continue to believe that you carry half of each species. Even _if_ your heart was human, it comes nowhere near close to half." He looked him up and down. "I credited you with being quite gifted with mathematics, but I see that…"

"Oh," The Doctor snapped. "Really? I'm being made fun of by a TARDIS? A TARDIS, mind you, who cant seem to tell the difference between 1979 and 1779." He pointed at him. "Just a singular example, although I can provide many, _many_, more."

Nine bit at his amusement. "The point I make, Doctor. Is that you are a child of Gallifrey; born on the floor of a TARDIS. You are Time Lord. "

"One heart," he corrected blandly. "Or haven't you been listening?"

"A Time Lord heart," Nine corrected sharply. "No part of you is Human, except, perhaps for your apparent suffering of the Time Lord intelligence." He caught the furious stare of the Doctor. "All Time Lords are born with one heart, you idiot. The second one comes with your first regeneration." He sighed a long suffering breath. "Rassilon, I thought you were smarter than that."

The Doctor's eyes widened in realization.

Nine continued. "For you to be half human, but with Time Lord consciousness, is impossible. Your mind would burn and kill you within 24 Earth hours." He moved closer to the Doctor, who was slowly coming into horrific realization. "There has never been a Time Lord/Human biological meta crisis, because it is non sustainable. The human mind is too weak."

The Doctor looked panicked. "Donna!" He pressed his hands into the console as though to hold himself upright. "What about _her_? Tell me that he was able to save her!"

"Would you have?"

"Of course I would have." The Doctor pressed the heels of his hands into his eyes and grit his teeth in momentary thought. "I could suppress the consciousness, erase her mind. That should prevent a complete burn, provided she is given no reminder of who we were together."

"Then assume that your brother did the same."

"I'm sure he did. She's our best friend, he would have done anything to protect her." The doctor dropped his head into his hands as he pressed his elbows into the console. "So I _am_ Time Lord, then? I assume with a total reboot and twelve full regenerations at my disposal."

"You've assumed correctly."

He didn't shift. "So no matter what, I'm destined to lose her. If not to this, then when her _forever_ is over." He looked up with moist eyes. "I thought I finally had the chance to take _that_ journey. Marriage. Kids. To grow old with someone." He sighed. "Nope."

Nine was silent for a moment, not knowing how to react or to respond to the Doctor's new heartbreak. His pain was palpable. Nine could almost taste its bitter flavor.

"How do I tell her," the doctor admitted softly.

Nine stood quiet as new ideas began to storm inside his mind. He ran scenarios and what-ifs, tested timelines and alternate realities. Finally, he snapped out of his trance. "There is _one_ possibility, Doctor. It's a slim chance, but it does exist as an alternate option." He rubbed at his chin and then flicked his hand at the monitor. "I've done some calculations, and run some simulations. We are looking at a 10% chance that it could work and you can save her."

"10% is pretty short. But. It's better than zero." The Doctor pulled the monitor toward him with far too much eagerness. "Show me." His eyes widened as he watched the data scroll through, circular Gallifreyan symbol twisting and turning through calculations. The Doctor's expression phased through several different emotions as it all played out before him.

"The viability of this scenario depends solely on the timing of it. Tricky," he said with a whistle. "Better hope the timing isn't off, or it could be devastating."

"You'll know when it's time, Doctor," Nine offered with encouragement. "Time is the Lord's game, is it not? I think that it's worth further investigation."

The Doctor bit his lip for a moment. He truly seemed to consider the option. Then, as quickly as the excitement had appeared, it fell again. He set his hands on the console and dropped his head between the void between his arms. "But it would be a life sentence," he finally muttered. "I don't know if I put her through that." He rolled his eyes and looked somewhat discomforted. "Given my track record and all. How many have there been now?" He started to count off his fingers.

"Would you rather that you gave up completely and let the Vortex kill her?"

The doctor shot him a glare. He pointed harshly toward him. "I've got a plan, okay? I will stick with my original design and try to find something, _anything_, to block the Vortex from destroying every cell in her body."

Nine used both hands to point at the data still rolling on the screen.

The Doctor rolled his eyes upward. "Yes. I see it. I know. It's tempting. Rassilon it's tempting." He coughed into his fist. "But that's going to condemn her…"

"Don't be so dramatic," Nine snapped. "You've got me almost believing that you're human with that kind of garbage. I will let you work on your own theories, and I will look at this and see if there are other scenarios worth investigating."

The Doctor flicked a high brow. "After all of your doom and gloom warnings about tampering with time lines, you're actually willing to look at ways of doing just that."

Nine grinned widely. "Fixed points must remain in place, but with the pathways to those fixed points being in a constant state of flux, we can play about with getting there any way we desire. Doctor, you specialize in doing just that."

He grinned widely. "Yep. It's a skill for sure." The smile dropped, however and he pointed to the monitor. "Last resort, you hear me?"

Nine shrugged. "I maintain that is a viable option." He held up his hands at a sudden piercing glare from the Doctor. "But if you want it shelved for the time being until you can find a power source strong enough to hold back the entire Time Vortex, but at the same time permeable enough allow its release so that we don't bring about the destruction of the universe, then fine." He tipped his shoulder upward to feign nonchalance at the suggestion. "Not a problem."

"You don't believe that I can do it, do you?"

"Not in the slightest."

"Oh ye of little faith," the doctor groaned long. "I've pulled off bigger miracles than this in less time." His eyes suddenly flashed wide and with a tooth-grinned giggle he let his fingers fly over the keyboard. As the computer worked the simulation, the Doctor proudly flicked the screen to allow Nine to see it. "A power source strong enough to challenge the Time Vortex. Easy peasy lemon squeezy."

Nine leaned across to take a look. He thoughtfully rubbed at his chin as he analyzed the results. "Well. _That_ was something I didn't even think to consider," he muttered. "It would be ideal if you could find a method that could double that wavelength and expand the power. Again, timing is quite critical."

"Yes," The Doctor muttered with a tight expression. "And, of course, execution. It's not going to be in any way an easy accomplishment." He blew a breath. "It would be a damn miracle if I could pull this off."

"I'll call the Vatican," Nine intoned blandly. He then clapped his hands. "Now that we're done chin waggin, let's actually get to work."


	15. A Proposal

A/N: This was a very tough chapter to get through (and may have had something to do with wanting to take a quick break from writing - and therefore stop the flow - to marathon some 4th Doctor delight to show my voracious and unrepentant 9yr old Whovian son just why Mum's a bigger WhoGirl than he is a WhoBoy, because HA! I've been Who'ing since I was a kid – and face it, Tom Baker is just bloody awesome, I'm happy to be distracted by his Doctor's adventures)… Actually, this chapter was actually tough because it involved sap, and I don't write sap at all well. While I will gladly read sappy fics and whimper along happily, I am loathe to actually write it. But it is actually important to add this in, because it becomes very very important later on. . If you don't like sappy stuff, then skip this chapter. The title of the chapter pretty much tells you what happens anyway.

~~oooOOOooo~~

Rose had awoken at around 9:00am to find a hastily scrawled note on her pillow from the Doctor letting her know he was at Torchwood and would probably be there most for of the day. As any true-blooded woman would do when presented with such a delightful opportunity of a day to herself, Rose had immediately taken off to get in some shopping. She had fully expected to return home by mid-afternoon with enough time to clean up the house, vacuum, and prepare dinner before the Doctor was to return.

She certainly did not expect to walk through the front door of their home to every light in the lower floor switched on; the television on with volume on full; the radio in the kitchen blaring with the latest on the pop charts; and the Doctor fast asleep on the couch. Sound asleep in the most adorable and undignified of positions, of course. His glasses were teetering off the end of his nose, lopsided over one cheek. He had one arm up behind his head, the other dangling off the couch still loosely clutching a note book. One leg was up and hooked over the back of the couch, the other hooked around a cushion on the seat. On his chest was an open hard-cover engineering text book, pages down. And his mouth, those glorious thin lips of his, were open just enough to release the smallest of snores with every inhale he drew.

She immediately dropped her shopping bags on the floor beside an arm chair and deftly reached for her cellphone. There were few too many moments when she could actually catch the Doctor unaware and in a vulnerable moment such as this. She held her breath in order to catch that perfect candid shot that would now become the wallpaper for every computer, tablet, smart phone, and laptop she owned.

The Doctor jerked to complete wakefulness as her iPhone loudly sounded off a lens shutter click to indicate that the photo had been taken. His precarious balancing act slipped and he fell into an unbecoming heap on the floor, narrowly missing the coffee table in front.

"What in Rassilon?"

Rose chuckled to watch him clumsily realign his glasses and frantically try to figure out where, exactly, he was. "Threat in 3. 2…"

"You dare wake the Oncoming Storm," he challenged with faux darkness. "Galaxies have suffered greater pains for far less."

"You dare threaten the Bad Wolf," she fired back. She showed him the face of her phone, which displayed the image of him asleep on the couch. "When I have such delicious blackmail? If only the invading alien hoardes knew that their mighty feared Time Lord sleeps with a teddy bear."

He swiped at the phone. "There's no teddy bear cuddling happening in that photograph."

"Ahh," she sang as she snatched the phone out of reach. "That's where photoshop comes in."

He slumped in mock defeat in a slouch in front of the couch. "Then I am at your mercy," he said within a deep yawn as he stretched his arms high above his head. "So. What time is it?"

"Bout two P.M.," Rose answered as she picked up the shopping bags and headed to the kitchen. "Need some lunch?"

The doctor hauled himself to his feet and rubbed at his lower back as he followed her into the kitchen. "Yogurt will be fine, thanks."

Rose tossed him a small container of Strawberry/Banana Yogurt from the fridge and slid a spoon across the counter. She was lightly distracted as she put away her groceries. "Did you get everything finished at Torchwood?"

He hummed in the affirmative as he pulled the lid off the yogurt and licked at it. "Mostly."

"Can I ask what you're working on?" She smiled a grin over the door of the fridge. "Knowing what they slide into your section of the building, it has to be pretty cool."

"Pretty cool and swiftly deactivated once in my hands." He lifted his head back in a pleasurable moan. "Oh. Strawberry and banana combination. _Brilliant_." He shoved another heaping spoonful into his mouth and grinned. "Have I told you lately how much I love this stuff?"

"Doctor," she warned.

"Oh," he spluttered. "Yes. You asked me a question." He scraped the spoon along the bottom of the container, looking somewhat lost that he was at the bottom of it after only a few spoons.

Rose quickly threw him another one.

He snatched it from the air. "What am I working on? Good question."

She stood hovering over the open door of the fridge as the Doctor went through the motions of opening up a new yogurt container, waiting for him to expand on that. At his distraction she frowned and stepped around the door to close it behind her. She leaned across the counter from him with her elbows on the table and her chin nestled atop her steepled fingers.

He caught her curious and urging stare and raised a brow to her as he pulled the spoon from his mouth. He spoke over the mouthful before he swallowed. "You know. I had a very interesting discussion today."

"Evasive," Rose sang with a high brow to match his. "That means it's juicy stuff. Who's got you all tight lipped, then?"

"You, actually," he answered as he finished his second yogurt and then leaned down on the counter in a mirror of her position. "I'm not sure just how much you really want me to know about something that I'm not really supposed to know anything about." He paused to take a breath. "But, then again, when you invite a Time Lord into your mind with full knowledge that there isn't going to be much that you _can_ hide…"

"You found the TARDIS," she said coolly, as though nothing out of the ordinary. "So what do you think of her?"

He looked surprised, but didn't move from his lean on the counter. "By your response I am going to assume that you intended that I find her." He grinned. "She's very lovely by the way."

"Are you mad?"

"No."

"Are you sure?"

"Quite positive, actually," he answered with a shrug. "However, that isn't to say that I am not concerned. Shocked. Confused. Hurt. _Concerned_."

"You've already said that," she offered meekly.

"Such an important emotion that it must be expressed twice" he said on a breeze. "I want to ask you, however, with all the calm I am capable of…"

"_Here_ we go."

He raised a hand of pause. "Why?" At her frown of confusion he continued. "Why did you want to grow a new TARDIS?"

Her shifted her eyes from him and dropped her ear to her shoulder. "Well."

An extension to the end of a single word answer. He knew what that meant.

The Doctor sighed in disappointment. "Obviously you don't want to answer that right now. But when you're ready, I'll be upstairs." He sniffed at himself, and winced at the aroma of sweat, coffee, musk and something else organic that he was fully prepared to blame on the TARDIS. "In the shower."

She took his hand quickly from across the counter. "For you," she muttered with a sniff and a forced voice. "I did it for _you_."

He pressed his lips tightly together in a pained smile and cupped her cheek with his hand. "Promise me that," he asked softly.

She clutched at the hand he held to her face. "Why else would I do it?"

He dragged his thumb across her lip. "To travel all of time and space, across the universe. Across parallels." He stepped back with a sad smile and looked upstairs with a clearing of his throat. "Yes. Well. I'll just be getting upstairs then."

Rose's eyes were locked in a frown as the Doctor left the room to go upstairs. Horribly confused as to what he was alluding to, she let out several hard breaths as she analysed the conversation that had taken place. Yes, she could understand that he would be slightly miffed to severely pissed off that she had gone behind his back to grow the TARDIS – understandably so. Truth be known, she was slightly freaked out over the power that she was playing with. Time Lord Technology and the massive Time Vortex power generation were somewhat out of her _pay grade_, and were far better left to a man who was an ex-Time Lord.

But her first Doctor guided her well and assured her that nothing could go wrong, that they were perfectly safe. The both of them – TARDIS and Rose – were under the protection of the Time Lords of Gallifrey, so what could possibly go wrong?

Her eyes widened suddenly. _Time Lords_.

Her palm met with her forehead as she expelled a breath of annoyance. "Oh damn it damn it damn it," she cursed to herself. "Of _course_ he'd think _that_." She glared up the stairs. "Oh, don't you dare."

~~oooOOOooo~~

With his hands braced on the wall of the shower, and his head dropped inside the shower stream, the Doctor let this mind wander back to his conversation with his ninth self, and to the revelations revealed to him hours before.

Fully Time Lord.

Part of him wanted to act at least a little surprised, but he wasn't really an idiot. He'd had inklings of such over the past few months. A little too much insight into time. Lack of human sleep patterns. Bruises received, and then healed within hours. The lower than usual body temperature and respiration rate. The absolute longing need to express Time Lord/Gallifrey emotions to his pink and yellow human girl over the human ones he was supposed to feel.

Seeing the TARDIS certainly didn't quell any of the Time Lord desires within him. Oh no. It only heightened them more. There was an instant connection between man and ship; like they had been as one for all of Time. But taking back his TARDIS meant giving up the one thing that he couldn't possibly even begin to imagine giving up.

A long unused curse in Gallifreyan passed through his lips.

_Rose._

How that woman could possibly end up on his mind as so many separate and terrifying questions on such an ongoing and consistent basis, he couldn't explain. Since the day she ran into his life, she'd been able to off-balance the mighty genius Time Lord. She was, quite simply, the question that could not be answered…

…At least not in a single human lifespan.

…Which is all the time he had.

He held back from thumping the wall in frustration at his current quandary, and of how he could possibly try to manage to solve at least one issue out of the five running through his head. First things first, a conversation with Rose was imperative.

There must've been some deity listening to his thoughts because as though by some divine intervention the shower curtain screeched open, and a rather livid looking Rose Tyler stood on the other side.

The doctor practically jumped a foot in shock. "By Rassilon, Rose!" He thumped at his chest as though indicating a heart attack. "Scare a man into regeneration."

She launched straight into it. "Just who do you think you are getting all jealous and insecure?"

He blew beads of water off his lip and desperately tried to forget that he was currently wet, naked, and cornered in a shower stall with no escape. "I'm being _what_?"

"_Promise me, Rose_," she whined out in almost perfect imitation of the Doctor. "_Promise me that you aren't making a TARDIS so you can run between parallels and go find _him." She let out a single breath of a laugh and pointed a finger into his chest. "Says _you_, Spaceman, with your chasing after French aristocrats and flirting with miss pigtails with a _y_…"

"There's no Y in pigtails, Rose." He yelped as her hand met with his bare and wet arm. "Hey! Now what's got you all up in arms?"

She tried her very best. She did. She tried hard to maintain a level amount of frustrated anger at him. But with him standing naked and vulnerable under a heavy shower stream, with his amazing gravity defying hair all soggy and flat down over his brow, and an utterly confused look on his face, how could she? He looked like a drowning little puppy dog that she wanted to bring out of the rain. She made do with biting at her smile and slouching a hip to the side as she folded her arms across her chest.

"I told you, nearly twelve months ago, that if I had to make the choice of who I wanted to be with out of _him_ and you, it was _you_."

"Yes. I vividly recall that conversation." He was tempted to turn the water off so that he could at least see her in front of him without water being sprayed into his eyes, but the threat of freezing to death for however long she intended this conversation to go for made him keep that hot water flowing. "And it's relevant to right now because?"

"Because you're accusing me of growing the TARDIS so that I can go find him again."

He did _what _now?

The Doctor's face lengthened in very shocked surprise. "Uhm, no I didn't."

"Yes you did."

He shook his head quickly. His eyes were wide and his brows kitted firmly together. "No I didn't. I didn't even entertain that notion. Didn't even think of that to be honest. But thank you very much for planting that seed of doubt in my mind." He slumped. "Add another bulleted point to the list of things I'm currently worried about with my Rose Tyler and a TARDIS."

"You have a _list_?" she asked timidly.

He put a wet hand on her shoulder. "Rose. I'm currently naked and wet in front of you. As you don't appear to have any desire within you to do what it is that you usually do when you bust in on me while I am taking a shower." He paused and waggled his brows just to see if she might go for it. She didn't so he sighed. "Let me finish up and then you and I can have a chitchat about a couple of things."

She looked particularly terrified by the prospect. "You want to _talk_?"

"It's the usual method of communication on this planet, am I right?"

She nodded quickly. "Uhm. Yeah. Sure. I'll just go downstairs and wait for you to finish up."

He pressed a wet kiss to her forehead. "Or we could finish up together?"

She backed off. "I'll meet you downstairs."

~~oooOOOooo~~

Rose paced nervously in their living room. She bit at her thumbnail and repeatedly looked to the stairs in wait for her Doctor to finally emerge from the bathroom. She didn't know _exactly_ what he wanted to talk to her about – probably the TARDIS if anything – but _a talk_ never meant anything good, and she felt a pit form in her stomach.

The pit deepened when she finally heard him descend the stairs. She gasped to take in his image. Gone was the pinstripe suit, Oxford and tie. Hello to a pair of relaxed fit jeans, crew neck shirt and an open button-up shirt. Even his hair was different. Still thick and scruffy, but not quite defying gravity as it normally would.

Her hand immediately flew to cover her mouth in surprise.

He immediately paused at the bottom of the stairs when he saw her expression. The look in her eyes matched the look she gave him moments after he'd regenerated into this form, right before she accused him of being Slitheen and asked him to change back. He immediately looked down at himself.

"You don't like it?" He thumbed upstairs. "This time I can change if you like." He frowned. "I mean the suits – all of them – need dry cleaning, which is why I took the casual look, but ..."

"It's fine," she said quickly.

"Yeah?"

She gave him a 100 kilowatt smile. "It kind of suits you, actually." She looked toward the couch in invitation for him to join her in the living room. "I'm glad to see that you're actually wearing the clothes that I bought you, oh, almost 12 months ago." She slid up to him and scruffed at his hair. "Different. I like it."

He grinned as he took her hand in his and led her into the living room. "I like that you like it." He sat her down on the couch and took a seat, himself, on the armchair directly across from it. He frowned to watch her immediately shrink and begin gnawing on her nail in a manner he knew meant that she was worried about something. "Are you okay, Rose?"

She nodded quickly, but didn't remove her thumbnail from her mouth.

"Rose?"

She blinked quickly, almost having worried herself to tears. "You wanted to _talk_?"

"Oh yes," he said with urgency. "I do." He thought for a moment for a good starting point. He frowned and looked to the ground as he thought of where to start. Finally he seemed to collect himself and looked up at her. He shifted his body to one side and pulled a small both from his pocket and rolled it between the palms of his hands as he settled back into his seat.

He didn't catch the sudden hitch in Rose's breath.

"I mentioned to you earlier today that I had a very interesting discussion." He looked up to her to capture her eyes with his. "And part of that discussion led to a revelation that will directly impact you and me, and our future together."

She licked at her lip, not quite knowing where this was going, but for sure hoping that it was leading to him giving her whatever was in that box. "I'm listening."

He heard the stagger in her voice and kept nervously rolling that little red velvet box in between his palms. He looked away from her and cast his gaze downward. "I'm not human," he rushed out quickly.

"I know," she said softly. "You told me that the day we met."

His eyes shot upward. His gaze was apologetic. "When I told you that I was half human. Well. It turns out that I was wrong." He leaned forward quickly. "I didn't lie to you. I honestly believed it," he assured. "When the Meta Crisis happened, and I woke with only one heart, _well_, what else could I think?" His eyes were wide as he took them from hers.

"But. But you've only got one heart," she managed, sounding like she was talking around marbles. "To be Time Lord, you have two, yeah?"

He nodded. "All Time Lords are born with one heart. The second one comes after the first regeneration."

"Oh," she breathed with a heavy purse of her lips. "And you just _forgot_ about that little fact?"

"It's been over 900 years, Rose," he defended. He leaned back in the chair and slouched as he tapped the little red box on his knee. "I don't know. I guess I just wanted to believe it so badly; to have that chance to take that slow road journey with you that it escaped me completely."

"Because that's what you want?"

He nodded. "To not watch you wither and die, and then have to carry on without you? Yes. Absolutely yes." He looked annoyed. "I knew that my brother was going to leave the two of us together…"

"So you're going with _brother, _then?"

He nodded. "I'm not calling him _Dad_." He caught her smile. "Anyway, so knowing that I would have the opportunity to be left with Rose Tyler, I let myself believe that, yes, I was human."

She exhaled a long breath. "If you knew you were fully Time Lord, then chances are he would have insisted that you both travel together."

He nodded. "The three of us together, imagine." He shook his head. "I'd have killed him by now enough times that he'd be out of regenerations. _Well_," he reflected with a smile. "I'd at least have a fully functioning T40 TARDIS to call my own."

That made her chuckle into her hand. When she settled. "Okay. So you're a full Time Lord of Gallifrey." She tipped her head lightly to one side. "And you think that might cause a problem with you and me?"

He nodded.

"Well it hasn't before," she said bluntly. "I fell in love with a fully Time Lord alien man; and I will continue to be in love with him, even if he decides to tell me his next generation will make him a green-skin alien with two heads."

He grinned his trademark smile of thrill. "That," he breathed. "Is good to know, because regenerations, they can be a lottery."

She snorted. "Tell you what. I'll keep killing you until I get a regeneration that I like the look of."

"I'm very thrilled that you can find humour in it," he smirked. Then his expression turned serious. "Which brings me to _this." _He held up the box between his fingers. "I've got an important question for you…" He paused at the sudden bounce she got in her chair and the tiniest of squeals she made.

It actually made his single heart flutter a little.

"Anyway," he managed through his smile. "Before I can ask this question, I need you to understand just _how_ important it is that you really, really, really take the time to think about your answer."

She was close to exploding. Curse him and his long winded way of doing things. "Are you proposing," she spluttered finally. "Because I don't need to think about that. I already know my answer."

He looked down with a light laugh. "Oh my Rose Tyler." He looked back up and rested his elbows on his knees in a slouch. That box remained toyed between his hands. "Yes. I am proposing." His expression lifted to stop her from leaping out of her chair and onto him. "But."

"How can there be a _but_ in a proposal," she gasped. "There's no _buts_ in a marriage proposal."

"But," he continued with a smile. "Marriage between Time Lords, and I mean a real one that isn't politically motivated; one of real love and devotion between two people; means something very different than it does here on Earth." He moved to kneel into the space between them and set the box on her knee. "It means that you take me forever. For the rest of your life. Forever. Once we take that step there is no backing away. No divorce. No separating. We are as one, literally, until death do us part."

There was a tear in her eye. "But that's what marriage should be, Doctor."

He nodded and rubbed at her knee. "And on Earth you humans seem to have forgotten that. Marriage on Earth is just a legal union these days. In the chapel one day, annulling it the next and moving on to your next spouse." He tilted his head to one side to regard her softly. "With me, Rose, it'll be forever."

"Which is what I've always promised you," she vowed softly. "That's why I'm Bad Wolf, and why the words are spread through time and space. So that the entire universe knows that you and me, we're forever, and no matter what they do to try and separate us – We'll always find our way to each other." She slid off the couch onto his knee and looped her arms around his neck. "So, yes, Doctor. I will be your forever."

"I'll never age," he warned softly.

"Promise that you'll stay in love me when I do."

"I can never give you children."

"I don't want them." She captured his mouth softly with hers. "I just want you."

He let her roll her mouth languidly against his a moment, reveling in the taste of her. Finally he broke their connection and grinned a toothy grin as he opened the box and showed her the ring he'd crafted just for her. "Wear my ring as a promise to me that when the time is just right, that you and I take our vow and bond as one."

As he slid the ring onto her finger, Rose had to gasp. "Doctor. It's beautiful!" Her eyes shot to his. "Where on Earth did you find something so exquisite?"

He appraised his work, and its look upon her finger and then pressed his lips into her knuckles. "In 1842 I was in Bolshaia Morskaia and met this lovely gentleman named Gustav Faberge…"


	16. A Simple Errand

A/N: There is method to my madness, I promise.

~~oooOOOooo~~

Run to the store; grab some toilet paper and milk; run back home.

That's all he had to do. That was his assignment for the evening. Run to the store and pick up a couple of things that Rose had forgotten to pick up when she was out earlier and then hightail it back home. Ten minutes Tops.

Ten minutes.

Rose should really, never, have offered a specific time frame for him to follow, because infallibly, whatever number was applied to said specific time frame, Murphy's Law would invariably step in and make sure that something – and typically the worst thing possible – was going to go wrong to truly expand that number, well, _ten_fold. Thereabouts.

He gave an annoyed huff as he pressed his fist into his temple, leaned his elbow against the wall, and analysed the trim of his nails on his other hand. "You know," he muttered with a smile of remembrance. "I met Captain Murphy once. 1949. Edwards Air Force Base. Nice fellow. Nowhere near as pessimistic as one would believe he was."

A young woman beside him snarled quietly. "Will you shut up?"

"Well _that's_ a little rude," he replied with a frown.

A young man wearing Doc Martens with rolled up jeans and sporting a Mohawk and a ring through his nose – welcome back 1980's punk – leered toward him. "In case you haven't noticed it, mate. We aren't in the store anymore. We've all been _beamed up Scotty_ into an alien space ship."

The doctor grinned widely. "Oh. A Star Trek reference. _Brilliant_. Rose has me watching that." His smile fell into seriousness. "You do realize that the travels of the Enterprise are mere fiction, don't up? Nothing is even vaguely historically accurate; not even accurate in future timelines for that matter." He put his hands into his jeans pocket, and shifted to lean his back against the wall. "Their portrayal of some of the civilizations I've had dealings with can actually be quite insulting at times. I met a Vulcan or two in my travels." His grin was almost maniacal. "And _let me tell you_, there's nothing _rigid_ and _logical_ about that species." He laughed. "No siree."

The young man curled a pierced lip. "Will you shut up? They'll hear us and we'll be discovered."

The Doctor's brow lifted and he peeled off the wall to walk around the group of hostages that had been transmatted up from the supermarket. "Well. If we were a covert unit utilizing stealth for attack, then yes. Silence would be our wingman. However," He scratched at his head, and then poked his finger into a door. "As we were snatched from our nightly errands and beamed aboard this ship," he turned back to the group. "I'll let you know which one in rather short time." He turned back to the door. "Then what's the point? They know we're here." He spun back around. "They even sent a transmat beam to come pick us up."

A store associate, only a young teenager, hugged herself tightly. "I'm scared," she whimpered.

"Oh," the Doctor practically sang as he breezed across the floor toward her, his hands in his jeans pockets. "There's no need to be afraid. At least not yet, anyway." He put an arm across her shoulder and leaned down to speak into her ear. "Do you want to know how I know that?"

She nodded and sniffed back her tears. "Yes."

He maintained his lean and pointed up to some graffiti on the wall. "Do you know what that says?"

The punk fellow grunted. "I don't know, I don't speak alien."

The Doctor straightened up, but kept his arm supportively braced across the young woman's shoulder. "Well. Lucky for you I do," he chirped as he tapped a finger to his head. "Five Billion languages up here."

"You're full of shit," the punk growled.

The doctor looked somewhat perplexed at the image that the insult set in his mind. "Well. That is quite the mental image." He looked down at the young lady under his arm. "As I was saying. The writing on the wall says _Bod Ameki."_

"But how do you know," she asked quietly. "It's all lines and triangles."

"All languages look like lines and squiggles and circles when you don't know what it means," he offered. "But if you look at it, and I mean really take time to try and see the subtle differences in each line and shape that makes them all so unique, letters and words appear." He could feel the youngster begin to relax. "Now. I know that language, I've seen it before. It's used in the high courts of the Theonope citadel in the Iudronoe nebula." He grinned cheekily. "I won't say just _how_ I know it's from the high court, but I will say that the tale involves me, a beautiful Blonde girl named Rose, and our ignorance to the fact that it can be illegal in some worlds to…"

"Are you about done Mr. SciFi Network," the punk snapped. "This isn't the time for bedtime stories."

"I'm nowhere near close to done," the Doctor muttered. "And do you mind? This young lady is rather terrified and I'd like to be able to ease her mind without you playing the part of boogie man to make it worse."

The Punk stepped forward with a sneer as he rubbed his knuckles together. "You wanna go, then, mate?"

The doctor's eyes narrowed in annoyance. "Really? We're in an alien ship potentially about to fight for our lives and you want to fight _me_? You have to love the human race."

"So what does it mean," the girl asked nervously, hoping that she could distract the coming fight between two men.

The Doctor leaned down to her again, his jaw against her temple. "It means _Bad Wolf." _His voice softened. "And do you want to know why those words are so important?"

She nodded.

"Because it means that the Wolf is coming to save us." His arm tightened across her shoulder as if to hug her. His grin was wide and teeth were tight together. "My Wolf. My beautiful Wolf. I love the Wolf." He looked down into the girl's eyes. "I'm going to marry the Wolf."

"Is she pretty?"

"Beautiful," he breathed wistfully. "And very dangerous when you corner someone she cares about." He grinned darkly. "And. Well. Looks like our hosts picked the wrong party goer for their little shindig, because I'm one of the ones she cares the most about." He blew out a breath. "And we had such lovely plans for this evening, just me and Rose. But. Oh well, this kind of fun is good evening out for us too. Makes sense for her and I to spend the night of our engagement fighting aliens. After all…"

"Will you _please_ shut up," the woman hollered at him.

"…It's how we met," he finished quietly. He pursed his lips a moment. He thrust his hands into his pockets and raised his shoulders as he walked to lower his head into the dip between his shoulders. "Quite right," he muttered.

The young shop assistant tightened the hold of her hug into herself and raised her eyes to give the Doctor a look of pure innocence. "So you know where we are?"

"_Well_. That much is pretty obvious. We're on an Alien ship." He walked with his hands in his pockets, suddenly missing the swish of his long coat behind him. "It appears to be a class 2 V-35 Theonope Presidential Scout vessel." He looked back at the small group. "These things get sent out when the Presidential office is looking for _something_ of interest. Not really an attack vessel, but that isn't to say it isn't fully armed and prepared to defend themselves if necessary." He swallowed roughly. "And, compared to defense technology on this planet, they are more than well enough equipped to wipe out a country or two if Torchwood decide to shoot first, ask questions later."

"So they come in peace," the young associate asked hopefully.

"Oh. I wouldn't say they're here to make friends and sign treaties," he assured with a shrug. "But they aren't typically the type to get all rowdy and create trouble." His eyes widened. "Oh. Unless." He coughed into his hand. "Yeah. If _she_ is heading up this expedition, this might get interesting."

The woman caught that. "Who might that be?"

"Oh," he said quickly with wide eyes. "Nothing. Noone. Not worth you worrying your pretty head over." He started to pace. "She'd have to be, well, in her 500th year by now. It's been 300 years, so surely she's over it."

The punk chuckled. "You don't know women real well, do ya, Mate. They hold onto grudges for eternity."

The Doctor moaned with a definite slump. "I really didn't need that reminder. Rose is not going to be happy."

"And hang on. Three hundred years," he asked with unhidden incredulity. "You're three hundred years old?"

"Closer to Nine hundred and four, give or take," he answered distractedly. He turned when he heard the collective hitching of breaths behind him. "What? I'm still only a teenager on my home planet."

"You're an _alien_," the woman snarled at him.

The Doctor rolled his yes. "Once upon a time that didn't sound like such a derogatory term. But. Yes. I am an _alien_, if you wish to assign labels."

The teenager shuddered and held herself tighter. "I thought aliens were all green men with big eyes and no mouth. You. You look human."

"Oh no," he grinned with a coy lean toward her. "You look Time Lord."

"Is that what you are?"

He stood in front of the young girl and took her hands in his. His voice was soft and friendly. "I am the Doctor. I'm a Time Lord. I'm from the planet Gallifrey in the constellation of Kasterborous. I've been a protector of Earth for over seven centuries now." He smiled warmly and pulled the timid girl into a hug. He spoke honestly against her hair. "Please don't be scared, because tonight I'm going to be protecting you. Nothing will happen to you when I'm here. I promise."

"I'll hold you to that," she whimpered against his chest. "Nice to meet you, Doctor. I'm Jane."

"I wouldn't go about making promises you can't keep," the punk snarled. "If they're here and snatching humans then they're obviously looking to get more than a bit rowdy."

"Well," the Doctor snapped. "Aren't you just a bright little ray of pierced sunshine? Not everything is about a full on invasion. If the Theonopes are on Earth, then they're looking for something specific. We all just happened to get in the way of whatever they were looking for. I'm not particularly concerned."

The woman growled accusingly. "Would that something be _you_, Doctor?"

The Doctor's voice went very quiet. Almost a whisper. "Rassilon, I hope not."

The door behind him hissed open and all occupants of the room shielded their eyes against the sudden light from the hallway. The Doctor immediately stepped ahead of the small group to face the trio of guards that stood in the doorway.

"What do you want with us," he asked flatly.

The light seemed to fade behind the guards. The one in the centre of the trio stepped forward and made a show of sniffing the air deeply in disgust. "I smell Time Lord," he snarled. "Gallifrey filth on board my vessel."

The Doctor looked slightly hurt as he smelled himself. "Oi. I took a shower this afternoon. I'll have you know that I smell of sandalwood and vanilla, with a hint of Rose Tyler." He looked the guard up and down. "And if we want to start on who smells, you might want to go and spritz yourself up a bit." He held his nose. "You smell like you bathed in the swamps of Atrorix, and then dried off with the leaves of the Lychvoria."

"You _dare _to insult your captor, Doctor?" He pointed his hand dramatically at the three cowering humans and curled that hand into a fist. "I can crush each of them for your insolence."

"Well, yeah. You _could_," he answered with a shrug. "I mean, humans, they're easily _crushable."_

"Then crush them, I shall," he boomed with a victorious laugh.

He shook his head at the guard. "Okay. Enough of that. Asteon, old friend. What brings you to my parallel?"

Asteon set his hands on his hips and smirked. "Doctor. It has been a long while."

"A very long while," the Doctor intoned soflty. "Almost three hundred years."

"Three hundred and two to be exact, Doctor," Asteon corrected. "I brought you here to ask for your help." He tipped his head in tease. "And I believe that a favour is owed to me after the incident on…"

"Yes, yes," the Doctor interrupted quickly with an uncomfortable clearing of his throat. "No need to rehash old exploits of my younger regenerations. Favour owed, and I will gladly assist."

"Speaking of regenerations," Asteon said with a chuckle. "This one is very…" He looked him up and down with a curled brow. "Not your typical flamboyant sense of style."

"It's laundry day," he said with a shrug. He then thumbed back to the other members of the captured party. "Is there any chance of releasing these humans? They're scared and I'd really like to send them home."

Asteon shook his head. "It is unfortunate that no, I cannot. We played with risk to bring you on board, old friend." He nodded toward them. "I will ensure, however, that they are treated with all the hospitality that guests of the Theonope Presidential Family are afforded." He lowered his voice slightly. "Provided, of course, that they remain to the quarters they are assigned and not make their presence known."

The doctor's attention was immediately caught. "Division onboard the vessel, then?"

Asteon huffed in annoyance. "A millennia of space travel at service to the Presidential Family, and one year shy of retirement to the Presidential palace I find myself on a vessel captained by an insolent brat of the first family."

"Tell me it isn't…"

"Sincerest apologies, Doctor," Asteon said with regret. "The moment you left Theonope, so did she."

The Doctor winced. "Which would explain why I was unable to reach you the last time I was on your planet."

Asteon bit at his lip in amusement. "Do know that we were briefed on your last visit."

"Yes. I would imagine so." He looked guilty and amused at the same time. "It was _quite _the spectacle that trial. Poor Rose, she didn't know how to take it."

"I've taken to watching the footage here and there for the laugh. Your companion; did she run screaming back to Earth to get away from you when it was over?"

"Of course not." The Doctor beamed a wide smile of thrill. "We're betrothed, now."

Asteon palmed his head and moaned. "For the love of your Rassilon, do not mention that when Eskinda happens to discover that you are on board." He looked through his fingers at the Doctor. "She is already wreaking havock upon the innocent just for fun. She will destroy kingdoms and worlds if she finds her Time Lord to be betrothed to another."

The Doctor snorted. "Yeah. Well we have a way around that, anyway, so I wouldn't be too concerned."

"Yes. Well. My congratulations to you. She must be truly special to have wound herself around your hearts. The Doctor who cannot love."

There was silence for a few moments between the two men. It was interrupted when the Doctor cleared his throat. "So. In what way are you looking for my help, Asteon?"

"We need you to return us to our realm, so that we can return Eskinda to her father so that she can receive reprimand for her actions." He looked uncomfortable. "We had been on route to our nebula when we suffered an unfortunate collision with a Type-51 TARDIS."

The Doctor's face fell. "A Type-51? No. We can't have one of those in this dimension." HE gave a worried look to Asteon. "Was it with, or without pilot?"

"Single pilot, now a prisoner of Eskinda," he answered. "But that TARDIS, Doctor. There was something with that TARDIS that completely rewrote our navigation systems. We were thrown off course, through the vortex and into _this_ world." He moved his hand through the air as though to indicate the world at their feet. "It sent a trace signal to the ground below, I now assume, in search of you."

"Well it found me," he said with a frown. "Do we know the identity of the Time Lord in custody?"

"Will you help _us_ if I help you, Doctor?"

"Of course," the Doctor answered. "In any way that I'm able to." He looked apologetic. "Understand that I'm without my own TARDIS and in a dimension that isn't exactly well enough equipped to be able to slingshot you back home."

Asteon nodded knowingly. "Yes. As we were warned."

"By who?"

"By the Type 51," he answered with surprise. "That ship is much more sentient than what I'm used to encountering."

"Which is why it's dangerous and we have to get it out of this dimension." He tapped at his lip in thought. "Is it connected to this ship, or is it still separate?"

"Dimensional fusion, Doctor."

"O-Kay," he breathed long. "I _could_ make use of sub-routine Sigma 9, but with that level of power, you're probably going to have to jettison some of this craft to do it." His face tightened up. "I can't guarantee it'll work. Without a Gallifreyan source of power, and without any identifiable temporal rift energies in this parallel, it'll be pushing it." He scratched at the back of his head. "As an option, I could get you at least through the breach that the TARDIS created and get a message to my Brother, who could help you out the rest of the way."

"You have a brother?"

"Long story." He blew out a breath. "I _think _I could get a hypercube set up in fairly short time if I have access to TARDIS power." He rubbed at his chin. "Yes. I believe I can." He rubbed his hands together and grinned. "So. Let's get to it, then. Allons-y."

Asteon waved to his men. "Guards. Please make our guests as comfortable as possible and see to it that their every need is met. They are guests of our Presidential family." He looked to the Doctor as they both left the room. "Where did you want to begin?"

The Doctor followed behind Asteon. "First thing first. Do you know the identity of the Time Lord that is being held on this ship?"

Asteon shook his head, but pulled a disk from his pocket. "The actual identity, no. All I have is this. I expect you might know what it is."

The Doctor's eyes widened as he took the disk in his hand. His eyes, and his fingertip, traced the infinite figure-eight loop. He let out a worried breath. "Rassilon, it can't be. It's the seal of the Prydonian House of Gallifrey."


	17. A Time Lady

A/N: The thing I love about Doctor Who: That _anything_ is possible… :grin: What a playground! I took some major liberties here ... don't kill me for it...

~~oooOOOooo~~

Rose Tyler's fist came down hard upon the polished Oak finish of the briefing table of the Torchwood strategic offices.

"You will _not_ go about trying to shoot holes in that ship," she demanded. "Not while they're sitting up there all quiet and not doing anything, and especially not while the Doctor is on board."

Marcus folded his arms across his chest and leered down at her. "Can we even verify that the Doctor is on board that ship?"

She gave a firm nod and slid her iPhone across the counter, where the _Find my iPhone_ app was active on screen. "Verified," she snapped.

Marcus looked down his nose at the brightly lit face of the phone. "That verifies only that he is in the general area of the ship. For all we know he could be on a patio below the ship drinking one of his banana smoothies."

"If he was on the ground looking up," she snarled. "Then he would have phoned and asked me to go out on a date with him up on that ship." She blew out a breath to calm herself. "I am asking you for one hour. One hour to take a team on board to see if we can engage in any negotiations and see what they want."

He stared at her.

"Just one hour," she urged. "One. After that time frame, regardless of who is up there – me and the Doctor included – you can blow it to hell."

Pete Tyler nodded in agreement. "She's right, Marcus. Torchwood doesn't exist just to blow ships out of the sky on a whim. We've reputed ourselves as a fair organization with means and power to negotiate. We should do so in this instance." He pressed his hands into the table and leaned against taut arms. "They've shown no signs of hostility thus far."

"Except to take four hostages, including a Torchwood agent."

"A Torchwood agent who is probably in the midst of a negotiation with the members of the visiting party," Pete argued. "He's the one who knows what we're up against here, so let's give him the benefit of the doubt and a little bit of back up support." He looked to Rose. "Pull together a team of five to go up there. I'll have Spencer try to back trace the base codes to get you onboard as undetected as possible."

"Thank you!"

He held up a finger of warning. "One hour, Rose. That's your time frame. You will remain in contact with the ground at all times. Find the Doctor, find the hostages, and get them out. Those are your orders."

She nodded quickly. "Understood." She turned to run from the room to gather her team.

"Rose," Pete called after her. "One hour, that's it."

~~oooOOOooo~~

The gathering in the Command Centre was small as Rose Tyler chose the members of her boarding party. With only a one-hour window to put everything together, get on board, find the hostages, and then get out, it was difficult for her to find four volunteers to assist.

She found a team of three men willing to suit up and beam in; and within ten minutes of the order, they were assembled in the Command centre.

Wilson, a tall, lanky man with a killer sniper shot, and a definite admiration for the Doctor. Roberts, a stocky lump of pure muscle that was perfectly able to barrel through any doorway, and Erickson, a calm, handsome, and quiet fellow who was cunning and brilliant out in the field. They were a trio she was most happy to work with.

Spencer worked feverishly on the computer on the main command deck with Pete Tyler looking worriedly over his shoulder and Marcus snarling beside him with the ever effervescent Commander Jackson looming at his side.

"How are you doing, Spence," Rose called up."

"Having some problems with the network, Rose," he answered apologetically. "Working as best I can here, but it's hard when you have eyes on ya all threatening and gnarly and stuff."

Rose adjusted the shoulder strap of the gigantic gun she carried. "I trust you, Spence. We're ready, so the second you get those codes…"

"You'll be on board." He finished for her. "Not a problem, Boss Lady."

Rose looked to her team. "So, boys. You ready to crawl around another alien ship and see what tech we can knick and play with?"

"Oh you know it," Wilson said with a laugh. "Those aliens really do have the best toys."

Roberts was equally eager. "Me and the missus, our tenth anniversary tomorrow. Figure I can grab her something alien as a present."

Rose laughed. "Oh don't you dare. You treat that lady right and get her something pretty. From Earth." She looked impatiently to Spencer. "Please tell me you're having some luck."

Spencer's eyes were wide. "Head's up, Boss Lady. We've got a sensor wave approaching this area. Hot and wide. Looks like your Doctor might be looking for you for that date after all."

"That's my clever boy," she whispered to herself. "I'm right here waiting for ya."

Spencer and Pete Tyler watched with wide eyes as the group suddenly vanished inside a bright blue light.

"I thought you couldn't access the base codes," Pete asked quietly.

"That wasn't me," Spencer muttered in just a low a voice.

"The Doctor, you think?"

"If you want to believe for a second that he'd deliberately pull Rose into danger when he knew she was safely on the ground, then yeah, totally believe the Doc did this."

"Sarcasm wasn't necessary." Pete let out a rattled breath that was a mix between moan and growl. "I'll pull an extraction team together just in case. Keep working on those codes and monitoring the team on board." He put a hand on Spencer's shoulder. "I can't stop the Board's decision to blow that thing out of the sky at the end of the hour, but I'll sure as hell have someone ready to go up there and pull them out if I have to."

"Have you ever introduced the board to Jackie?" Spencer mused.

Marcus leaned in to Jackson, ignorant to the conversation taking place ahead of him. "Now that we have adequate distraction, we should meet."

~~oooOOOooo~~

Each of the four team members gagged to dry heaving as they burst through the transmat stream. That trip was very unlike any they'd experienced through Torchwood methods, and it had each of them immediately on guard and ready for a fight.

Rose led the squad and pushed her hand down in the air as she approached a corner to ask them to wait. She let just one eye breach the corner to look into the next corridor. It was thankfully empty, and she waved her hand to the team to let them file past her as she kept an eye on the rear. She jogged backward as they all rounded the corner.

"I don't see any movement at all," Wilson said with a grunt as he kept his eye down his scope. "Nothing. This place looks deserted."

"Don't let your eyes fool you," Rose warned. "Some of these aliens can be cunning bastards."

"Peel out of the woodwork," Roberts growled. "Like bloody ghosts."

"I wish I could honestly assure you otherwise," Rose said with a sigh. "So keep sharp. If you have a feeling about something, take that shit and run with it."

"Ten-four," Wilson answered, making sure to take the lead. He turned to press his back into a wall and checked the charge on his gun. "Looks like we're in a cell block," he admitted dryly. "Doc must've gotten himself into some decent trouble if he brought us here."

"Doesn't he _always_," Roberts remarked with a nudge in the arm to Erickson. "Scan for prisoners, mate."

"I gotto get that man out for a few beers," Erickson joked in return as he set his thermal scanners to search beyond walls. "Sober he's a riot, drunk must be a hoot." He stopped the scan on a single cell. "Looks like we have a live one. Not the Doc, this one's a woman." He looked to Rose. "Intel says how many?"

"Four including the Doctor," she answered quickly. "Two women, one middle-age, the other a teenager, and two men; the Doctor, and a twenty-something man that, according to the CCT feed looks something like a rooster."

"Or a Billy Idol fan," Wilson mused. "Do we blow the door, Commander?" He let his eyes shift to Rose. "It'll probably blow our cover."

Rose licked at her lip and took a step toward the door. "Let me see if we can access it from outside the cell. The guards would have to have easy access if they're on watch, so an access panel, maybe?" She looked to Erickson. "Keep scanning, Roberts, keep an eye out, Wilson and I will see about getting this door open."

"You got it," Roberts answered as he took up sentinel position at the corner.

Wilson and Rose approached the door and shared a look of complete embarrassment to find a rather large access panel beside the door. Rose bit at her lip and gave Wilson a quick jut of her chin to the pad. "You do the honours." She held up her weapon. "I'll be your body guard."

"Bloody gun's bigger than you are," Wilson mused with a grin. "So hot."

"That's sexual harassment," she sang as the door hissed open. She stepped inside with her gun raised high and Wilson directly behind her with his eye locked down his scope. "Who's in here," Rose called. "We're from Torchwood, we're here to get you out."

An aging, but gentle motherly voice answered from the darkness. "You are the _wolf_. I've been expecting you."

Rose's grip on her gun tightened, and a grunt from behind her advised that Wilson had done the same. Her voice was a mix of fear, curiosity and threat all in one. "How do you know who I am?"

The figure stepped from the shadows and stood with regal air before Rose and Wilson. Her crimson and orange robe and golden elaborate head dress left little doubt that the woman who stood before them was royalty. Rose wasn't sure if she needed to bow or curtsey. She made do with lowering the gun and signaling for Wilson to do the same.

"Are you a prisoner," Rose asked gently.

The woman gave a slow, and low, nod of her head. "A prisoner, yes. But not one necessarily incarcerated unwillingly." She smiled as she took a step toward Rose. "My, but you are a stunning creature."

"Oh," Rose answered uncomfortably. "Why, thank you." She cleared her throat and took a step back to allow the woman to walk past her to the door. She lowered her head politely. "After you, ma'am."

The woman didn't step beyond Rose. Instead, she moved a step closer and lifted Rose's chin using the crook of her finger. "No need for formalities, Rose Tyler. We stand on equal ground, you and I."

Rose gasped. Wilson's gun flew upward to lock and load toward the woman. "How'd you know her name," he demanded. "Answer or I'll blow a bloody great hole in your head. You're not on my hostage list, no one will ever know."

The woman was amused. "Does my son know that he has competition for your affections?" She waved her hand at Wilson. "You can drop your weapon. I mean no harm."

Two faces lengthened in complete horrified shock. Wilson was the one, however, who voiced what was running through both of their minds.

"The Doc has a _mother_."

"Is that so surprising," she answered back incredulously. "All children have mothers. They would not be born otherwise."

"Yeah, but _him_? I didn't think he was actually born, just was kind of _there_." Wilson shook his head. "Nope. Still can't imagine it."

"But," Rose managed on a quiet and shaking breath. "But he told me you were all dead. Gallifrey burned. Gone. Everything, _gone._"

"No more," the woman answered in a ghostly tone of voice. "No more."

"But he blames himself," she charged. "He thinks he's the only one left. He mourns that loss _every day_."

The woman set her hands on Rose's shoulders. "My son has explained to you how time works, has he not?"

Rose nodded frantically. "Yes. Points that are fixed, lines that are in flux. I have a very basic understanding." She swallowed. "But the destruction of Gallifrey…"

"Will be prevented by the Wolf and the Storm." The woman smiled. "As it always has been."

Rose gasped. "It _has_?"

"You have seen all of time and space, Rose. You saw all the timelines past and future. All that was, all that is, and all that will be." She cupped Rose's cheek in her hand. "Did you see Gallifrey ablaze in that moment?"

"I don't remember," she admitted softly. "The Doctor. He took those memories away from me so I wouldn't burn."

"And I am here to help you remember," the woman cooed gently. "Rassilon sent me, as penance for my crimes against his rule, for you to become the power behind Gallifrey's very survival. His order us that I sacrifice myself for your survival."

"No," Rose gasped in a hot decline. "I won't let you sacrifice anything, especially yourself."

"You have no choice," the woman crooned as she moved quickly toward Rose with her hands raised to take her head on her fingers. "The path must be completed to protect the very fabric of time and space."

Wilson snorted, his gun raised high. "Well it's obvious where _he_ gets it from."

"Wilson, shut up." Rose evaded the woman's touch with a spin and took steps backward to put space between them. "No," she hissed with a hand raised in a _stop_ motion. "He has lost enough. I won't let him lose anything else – especially not _you_."

"In my place you sacrifice yourself, Rose," she countered. "Is that what you think he wants; to lose you again? You will _not_ survive the birth of your TARDIS without my help."

"But I can be replaced," she argued meekly. "A mother can't."

The woman dropped her head in sorrow. "I have not spoken to my son in seven hundred years, Rose. There exists no parental bond between us."

Rose's breath immediately hitched and she moved quickly to offer support to her. "We can fix that. We can." She put her hand lightly on her arm. "I can help."

Without so much as an intake of breath, the Doctor's mother snapped her hands to Rose's face and locked her fingers against her cheek and temples. "By the order of Rassilon, I accept my exile and pass along my right of birth to the house of Prydonian to you, Rose Tyler, so that you can fulfill Time's demand and rescue our civilization alongside the renegade child born and cast from Lungbarrow."

Explosive golden light enveloped both women, temporarily blinding the young soldier at guard in the room with them. The cry of a wolf, and the pained cry of Rose Tyler filled the room.

It was like having her head stuck in a vice, tightening and tightening, crushing her skull. Image after image, thoughts, pains, pleasures, heartbreak and elation. It was all filling her mind with brilliant light and horrific darkness. Songs and laughter, tears and joy. Information, data, figures, science, language. Time and space explained. Destiny.

Roses eyes were wide through the light as she looked upon the woman ahead of her. "No more," she begged. "No more."

The vice-like grip of the woman's fingers released with a vacuumous sensation, which drew Rose's face and body forward. With a simultaneous cry, the women fell into a combined heap on the floor.

"Shit! Rose," Wilson yelped as he broke position and dropped to the floor beside the two women. Each hand reached for the pulses of each woman. "Erickson, Roberts, get the hell in here."

Roberts skidded to the floor beside Wilson, tossing his gun to the side. "Erickson, on guard, man. We got girls down!" He looked at Wilson. "What the hell happened?"

"Shit, I dunno, mate," Wilson admitted with panic. "But whatever we do, we gotto get em both out of here, and safe. Doc'll lose his shit if we lose either one of them."

"S'Okay," Rose managed with a slur. "S'all good. M'good." She clutched at her head and pressed iher forehead into the ground, using her knees as leverage. "My head's killin' me."

"You need a Doctor," Roberts offered innocently. "I'll contact…"

"That's not even half way funny," Rose growled. She gasped. "How's Mother?"

"I am weak, but I will be fine," The woman answered quietly. She touched her hand to the back of Rose's head. "It will take you time to get used to your new consciousness. But, your mind is strong, young lady. Strong. The will of the Wolf-child of Gallifrey."

Rose looked tearfully at her. "What did you do to me?"

"I did what I had to do," she promised.

Wilson's wrist emerged between the two women, and his finger to point at a watch. "Can we possibly ask you two to continue this at another time? We've only got twenty minutes left to find Doc and the hostages before Torchwood blow us to Kingdom come."

Rose nodded sharply and moved swiftly to her feet. "Yes. I have to find him." She looked at Mother with concern. "Are you in any condition to join us?"

"Don't matter," Wilson muttered with a groan as he dropped and hauled Mother up over his shoulder. "I've got her, you lot cover me. She gets hit with anything unfriendly, dealing with Doc is on your ass." He looked to a very quickly recovering Rose Tyler. "You good Commander?"

"Right as rain," she answered sharply. "Let's go find my Doctor."

Robert shouldered Wilson's weapon and took flank behind he and Rose. He nodded up to the woman balanced on Wilson's shoulder and addressed his teammate. "I'm guessing another Time Lord, or Lady, or whatever they are?"

"You wouldn't believe me if I told you, man."


	18. The Apple Doesn't Fall too Far

A/N: Tech retarded, remember that. Bluffing through it...

~~oooOOOooo~~

The Doctor rolled the disk between thumb and finger as he walked beside his old friend Asteon. He was unusually quiet as his mind raced with curiosity as to who might be on board and under custody on this ship. The Lords from the house of Prydonian numbered many, but there weren't too many of them that would seek access to a decommissioned TARDIS machine such as the Type 51; it would practically be beneath them. Moreso, to the very best of his knowledge all of the Time Lords from all houses were on Gallifrey when he … when the planet burned.

Well. Then again. The Master escaped, didn't he? Any other one of the Prydonians could have escaped the blaze, too. But who?

He wiped his hand down his face. The Prydonian chapter had a reputation for producing the more devious and cunning Time Lords. Master and Doctor included.

_Rassilon._ It could be anyone. Even the Grand Master himself.

The Doctor shuddered at the thought.

But, all speculation aside. Regardless of which of the Time Lords was on board, it was a good thing. A really good thing. He truly was not the last of his kind. And that, was just brilliant.

Unless he was facing another kind of _Master._

He shuddered again.

Asteon gave him a sideways glance. "Ten credits for your thoughts, Doctor."

"Yeah," he breathed long. "'bout the right price, but they're probably not entirely appropriate for where we are right now." He scruffed at his hair. "Your cell block, it's secure, yeah?"

Asteon gave a nod. "As secure as most Presidential ships." He pressed his palm into an access panel. "Time Lord identity got you worried?"

The Doctor grinned. "Of course not. Why would one need to be concerned about a Lord of Time."

"Oh I just can't think of a single reason," Asteron intoned sarcastically. "None at all." Then he grinned suddenly. "Now those Time_ Ladies_ on the other hand…"

A squeal from the end of the corridor behind them shoved the Doctor's response back into his throat. "No! I won't stay here with _you._ I want to go with the Doctor!"

The Doctor's eyes shot wide as he spun in place. A little brunette comet torpedoed into his chest. "Uh. Jane?" He ignored Asteon's chuckle. "Is everything okay?"

"I'm on an alien ship," she whimpered into his chest. "What do _you_ think?" She looked up tearfully; her expression of pure and absolute innocence obviously very well rehearsed. "Can I please stay with you?"

The Doctor pursed his lips to hide his amusement. It didn't help that Asteon was breathing in chuckles at his side. "You're holding just short of a complete temper tantrum, aren't you?"

She nodded.

"So if I tell you that it's too dangerous and that you should stay with the guards…"

"Would you like to find out?" She nestled into his side. "Because I think it's for the best that you and I stay together."

The Doctor gave a defeated sigh and slid his hand into hers. "You can stay with me, then. If it makes you feel better." He gave Asteon a desperate look. "So, Asteon?"

"Yes, Doctor?" He answered with amusement.

His voice was an octave higher due to the biting of his own laughter. "Could you possibly take me to the remnants of the TARDIS command console?" He took a gulping breath. "I want to see what's available to use to get you back home." He peeped as Jane shifted that little bit closer to his side.

Asteon swallowed a snort and pointed ahead of them. "Just through here, old friend. As luck would have it, the command console of the TARDIS ended up on our main command deck."

"Oh," he hummed nervously. "I really don't like coincidences."

"Luck isn't exactly a word in our vocabulary, is it?"

"It actually isn't a word in my native tongue," he mused softly as he made to drop the hand of the young teenager to rush to the mess of wires and control panels scattered along one wall and toward the console of the Theonope craft. "Nothing is chance."

"Not in our experience, anyway." He walked with the Doctor toward the main computer. "Do you think this may be an intentional collision?"

The Doctor considered the question for a moment, his lips tight and sealed together. As he analysed the debris he let out a breath. "A TARDIS doesn't typically allow its pilot to collide it with another craft. It'll automatically override the pilot commands – or make it pretty well known that bad things are about to happen." He looked further along the damaged console. "From my experience, a TARDIS will fight for all she's worth for a collision _not _to happen." His eyes widened with remembrance of his own TARDIS' behaviour. "Trust me on that. My old girl, _phew_, she would fight."

"So a collision is impossible then?"

"Well. Obviously not _impossible._" He pointed to the damage. "Improbable, yeah. And I'm not saying that I've never been involved in collisions between TARDIS machines and the such." He tugged at his ear. "But you have to have a lot of things go pretty badly wrong all at the same time to end up with what we're looking at here."

"So definitely intentional."

"Oh," the Doctor breezed across a whisper. "Intentional and then some. But _why_? Why would a Time Lord deliberately crash a TARDIS into another ship and then alter their course through a dimensional wall? What's the purpose? _Why_?"

"Yes," Asteon mused. "And I like the word _why_ just as much as I like the concept of luck and coincidence."

The Doctor dove head first into a space under the console that once belonged to the TARDIS. While he inwardly cursed – for perhaps the 700th time since being left in the parallel world – the loss of his Sonic Screwdriver, he let his fingers move through the wiring.

"Oh, wouldn't worry," The Doctor said with a grunt as he tugged a box free of wiring. "This little baby's going to give us all the information we want." He wriggled out from his place under the console and jogged toward the main computer console for the Theonope craft. "Banshee Circuit," he advised, shaking the unit as he walked. "Our Flight Data Recorder. This will let us know _exactly_ what happened." He plugged it in to the computer. "And hopefully, how to get you out of this mess."

The Doctor slipped his glassed from where he'd hooked them on the collar of his shirt, and settled them on the bridge of his nose. With his hand curled around his chin, and with a relaxed slouch against the console, he filtered through the data on the screen.

Asteon watched with concern as the doctor's expression filtered between shock, awe, fear, and back to shock and awe. "Is everything okay, Doctor?"

"How very clever," the Doctor answered somewhat distractedly as he pressed a couple of buttons on the console and looked through more information. "So clever. Brilliant in fact. _Absolutely brilliant._"

"Is that good or bad?"

The Doctor looked quickly toward his old friend with the wide eyes of an excited child. "The pilot of this TARDIS was pure genius," he began quickly. "The T-51 TARDIS was designed with a Cybernetic Personality Matrix Interface to be used in conjunction with a Symbiotic Bypass, to allow it to fly without a pilot. And, _well_, the design didn't quite meet expectation." He looked to Asteon with a slight roll of his eyes. "The CPMI glitched, which made the machine more _sentient_ than intended. "

"In what way," Asteon queried as he slid his own glasses up high on his nose.

The Doctor sighed. "They got grumpy, developed disruptive personalities.."

"Turned into teenage girls, then?"

The Doctor gave a laugh. "Ho-Yes."

Beside them, Jane growled in disgust. "That's very insulting, you know."

"But so very true," muttered Asteon. "I've father four of them, and am grandfather to another six."

The Doctor seemed a little impressed by the figure. "Well, congratulations to you, my virile old friend."

Asteon gave a single belch of a laugh. "Considering my species give birth to litters of three or more children, Doctor, that makes me less virile and more sterile, wouldn't you say?"

"Traveling with a political brat will do that to a man." He went back to the computer. "But we digress. Back to the matter at hand."

"So by genius," Asteon began. "Just what level of brilliance are we looking at here?"

The Doctor ticked his head in admiration. "Right up there with the best of them." He spun and pressed his rump into the edge of the console and folded his arms across his chest. "The pilot of this TARDIS was able to rewrite the block transfer process of the ship – in flight - to allow complete compliance to any command, without question. The Absolute Tesseractulator should have identified to the TARDIS that it was approaching a dimensional barrier, and the TARDIS should have counteracted the pilot's flight plan to prevent collision between two dimensions." He took a breath. "Because breaching a dimensional wall is bad. Very bad. But what this pilot did, was continuously track the movement of your ship through space until you were in the perfect navigational position for the Tesseractulator to be blinded to the wall. Exiting the Vortex at that precise moment allowed this pilot to materialize in space and collide with your ship before the TARDIS safety protocols could take control to stop it." He looked both terrified and impressed at the same time. "With the programming done to the CPMI, the TARDIS immediately went into survival mode, merged with your ship, and resumed its original course."

Asteon's expression was fairly neutral, but it was clear that he was unnerved. "Can you possibly tell the identity of the pilot through that little box there?" He blew out a shaking breath. "Because obviously this pilot wanted to get into your parallel, which I can only assume means that they're looking for _you_."

"Oh," he breathed with a frown. "I didn't think of that."

"Yes, well that's why you don't work in security, Doctor." He cleared his throat. "Anyone that's looking for you, and makes such great effort to find you, isn't usually on your path to play nice. Now that you are fairly undefended without your TARDIS, and in a dimension where no other immediate assistance can be found to back you up, we need to be concerned."

The Doctor frowned. "I wouldn't discount Rose and her Torchwood teams, Asteon."

"Against a Time Lord of Gallifrey? Need I remind you of your difficulties in dealing with Lords such as the Master?"

"Good point," the Doctor growled as he went back to the computer and searched the database for the user protocols of the pilot. "I know we are dealing with a Prydonian…"

"Who, we both know, are the trickiest and most brilliant of the Time Lord chapters."

"I'll take that as a compliment."

"Take it as you will, Doctor."

The Doctor didn't answer as his eyes locked on the screen. "No," he breathed on a low, low, voice. "It can't be."

"Doctor?"

The Doctor shook his head as he shoved himself away from the console and backed up a few steps. He raked his hands through his hair and clutched two tight handfuls. His eyes were wide and his brows arched high. "It can't be. Why? How?"

Asteon was immediately on guard. "We have that Time Lord in custody in our cell block, Doctor. Do we need to step up security?"

The Doctor approached him quickly. His eyes flared and his teeth grit tightly together. "You need to take me to her. Now. Right now."

"Her?" Asteon looked slightly confused. "Our prisoner is a Time Lady?"

"Not just _any_ Time Lady," he snarled. "Where is she?"


	19. From Bad to Much Worse

A/N: Thanks for the reviews! I'm loving that you're enjoying this little tale. This chapter is just some fun and games to lead in to more fun and games, which then leads to even more fun and games. Please bear with me as I get all my duckies lined up in a row…

~~oooOOOooo~~

The four Torchwood agents, and one Time Lady, made their way silently through the corridors of the Theonope craft. Three minutes since leaving the cell block, and not a member of the party had voiced any of the thoughts running through their head about the addition to their team. But, with the team walking single file, each monitoring a different scanning tool and watching for any possible unfriendlies, the time for questions wasn't exactly this point in time.

Or was it?

Erickson was the first member of the team to finally speak as he approached another corner and stuck to the wall as he motioned for the other members to pause. He began with his thermal scanner, and then cautiously peered around the wall.

"Nothing," he groused cautiously. "We're not coming up against anything here." He looked past Wilson, who was battling to see past a thick velvet robe and a Time Lady's back side, toward Rose. "This craft looks deserted, commander. Any idea as to why?"

Rose licked at her lip. "Well. Near as I can tell, we're stalking around in a class 2 V-35 Theonope Presidential Scout vessel. Scientific class. While it's a city of its own, it isn't heavily manned." She smoothed her hand over her hair to press down the flyaway stands that had escaped her pony tail. "Typically just a handful of Theonope Scientists with a small military – or guard – group for defense if required. They're a fairly peaceful civilization just out to scout the universe and explore what's out there. Kind of like Star Trek." Her words slowed dramatically, not quite punctuating every word, but certainly indicating that she was becoming very uncomfortable. "And how do I know that?"

The time Lady balanced precariously upon Wilson's shoulder offered her a smile of pride. "Oh, but the transfer of consciousness was successful, child. You now have reach into the vast intelligence held by our Lords of Time."

Rose stopped walking quickly enough that Roberts collided with her back. His gun went up immediately, and he curled a step around her to offer protection against whatever sneaky alien being must've just materialized in front of her.

"I have you covered, Commander."

Rose raised her hand sharply. "Stand down. Wilson, put her down this instant."

Wilson spun abruptly, his eyes full of question. "You sure? She's probably safer up here than trying to run about with all these robes flapping about her feet."

"Oh," she growled. "Very sure. If she's half of what her son is, then she's more than capable."

"On your order, then, Rose." He set the Time Lady on her feet and held supportively at her waist a moment just to be sure she was steady on her feet. "You good, love?"

"I am grateful for your kindness and care, but I am able to walk upon my own two feet, young man," she said with a gracious smile. "And do call me _Mother_, which is my chosen title."

Wilson sheepishly rubbed at the back of his head. "You're welcome, uh, Mother?" He clicked his fingers to Roberts to hand over the weapon. "You and me, mate. Let's scout ahead and give the ladies a chance to _debrief_." He blew out a breath as his eyes widened. "Best do it now while it's still quiet." He pointed to his watch. "Remember, time's short, girls. So move and talk at the same time, yeah?"

Rose nodded, her brows knit tightly together. "Yeah. Yeah. Multitask it, I hear ya."

Erickson kept watch at the rear of the group. "I'll call ground and see if we can get some extra time up here. I'll verify a non-hostile party."

"Thanks."

Mother took stride beside Rose and clasped her hands together in front of her belly. "I expect that you have concerns."

"And then some," Rose breathed. Her annoyance was palpable. "Unless the laws have changed since the Doctor was last on Gallifrey, entering the mind of another without permission is a violation of the highest order." She let out a breath. "Right up there with screwing with timelines and interfering with fixed-point moments of time."

"Yet my son has been found most guilty of the latter by several intergalactic agencies." Her smile was one of challenge. "And you do not question him."

"Because he does what's right," she defended. "He saves lives."

"Which justifies the means," Mother said with soft pride. "He has always been very unorthodox in his methods, but one cannot argue with his results."

Rose hummed a sound that was a mix between agreement and a request to continue. She was monitoring her own scanning device as they walked. "He took that consciousness away from me, _Mother,_" she began quietly as she held the device a little higher to scan to the front. "Because he said it was killing me. A Time Lord consciousness can't exist in a human brain. There aren't enough neurological transmitters to allow the necessary telepathic protections to prevent complete meltdown. " She slumped for a brief moment. "God. I'm an Estate kid who didn't even finish High School. How do I know that?"

Mother simply stared ahead into the dimly lit steel corridor.

"Are you trying to kill me," Rose asked softly.

"I really shouldn't dignify that question with any kind of response," Mother growled angrily. "But you are born of human stock, and I must admit that this is something unknown to your kind."

"Say that with a little less of an upturned nose, please."

Mother let out a long suffering breath. "My apologies, Rose. I don't intentionally mean to make you feel as though humans are a lesser species. It's just that centuries of standing upon a pedestal overlooking Time and Space have developed certain habits…"

"That make you appear holier than thou," Rose finished for her. "Yeah. Don't think I'm not used to it by now. As much as I love him, the Doctor can infuriate me sometimes with that very attitude."

"And now you can counter with your very own," Mother teased with a cheeky grin that held more than a slight resemblance to the Doctor's. "I assure you that you're in no danger from this new awareness, Rose. I merely provided you with Time Lord Consciousness because you are…" She was halted by Rose's hand being abruptly thrust upward into her face.

"Yeah, yeah. Because I'm the Bad Wolf," Rose hissed as she pocketed her scanner and lifted her weapon. "I'm up to date on that part. But Shh. More important stuff afoot. Wilson, you got it?"

Wilson gave a firm nod and flicked his hand to order Roberts to his side. "Movement, mate. Two o'clock, pair o' guards."

Roberts gave a firm nod. "Left and right flank, corner 'em in."

"Guns to stun," Rose ordered. "Erickson, stay to the back and watch our rear ends." She looked up to Mother, who was eagerly rolling up her sleeves. "Oh. I was about to ask…"

She flicked a small handgun from beneath the sleeve of her robe. "As the young man Wilson suggested earlier, the Doctor gets who he is from _somewhere_."

Rose raised a brow. "Not from his Dad, then?"

Mother winked. "We Ladies of Time are far more _adventurous_ than our Lords, child. His father may lay claim to my son's hunger for adventure, but really. _All me_."

"Oh," Rose sang through a wide smile as the pair braced with weapons locked and loaded. "I think I'm going to like you."

~~oooOOOooo~~

Asteon found himself shrinking back lightly from the Doctor. Friends for centuries, he'd never seen him look so aggrieved. He held his hand outward in a _stop_ order to his accompanying guards, who had immediately set aim upon the Doctor when he lunged with such hostility toward their Commander.

"Old friend," he warned evenly. "What is it that has you so upset? Who is this Time Lady?"

"I just need you to take me to her," the Doctor growled. "Her identity is best left for me to know only at this juncture."

"She is on my craft, Doctor," he countered in warning. "After deliberately colliding against it and rewriting our travel coordinates." He glared toward the Doctor. "Tell me. What force are we going to be dealing with here?"

"My mother," the Doctor admitted along a growl.

Asteon immediately took two steps backward. His hands were raised in his own defense. "Old friend. I assure you that I did not know."

"And on that I'll trust you," the Doctor muttered. "But I don't need to tell you…"

"That she's the only being in this universe and beyond more dangerous than you when cornered. Yes, I know, I faced down that battle during her second regeneration when you were just a loomling." He flicked his fingers in invitation to follow. "She is most definitely cornered right now. Let us make haste, my friend."

"Is it really that the Mother herself is so dangerous," a soft, melodious voice crooned from the doorway. "Or is it the wrath of her Renegade child the true danger?"

The Doctor straightened tall and his face lengthened in annoyance, but he didn't immediately turn around. "Of all the shit-house timing in the universe."

"Hello, my Doctor." Eskinda of Theonope sang seductively. "It has been such a long time, and I have spent so much time looking for you."

The Doctor stiffened when she touched at his hip. "Yeah." He began on a long and calming breath. He then gave himself an inward shake, and spun to her with a smile on his face, and a cheeky glint in his eyes. "Good to see you again, Eskinda. You are looking as radiant as ever. I'd love to take a moment to catch up, but I have some prior commitments that must be attended to. Busy man and all that. So if you don't mind. Cheerio."

Eskinda laughed breathlessly and hooked her hand around his arm. "Oh not so fast, my love. Your dear mother is quite fine, I can assure you."

The Doctor closed his eyes and swallowed his aggression down into his gut. "Did you play any part in her _accident_ with your ship?"

"Oh no," she sang inside a giggle. "That was all so perfectly coincidental. Here we are, two women searching the universe for the same man." She leaned in to him. "It's destiny," she whispered.

"Actually," he countered back with the same husky whisper. "No it's not. See. I'm not the Lord you're looking for." He pulled back from her and held his arms out to their full length in front of him in the hopes of keeping adequate distance from her. "You're looking for my brother." He thumbed behind him. "Next parallel over. Shouldn't take you too long to get there. I'll give you his phone number and he can meet you at the gate."

Eskinda pushed against his outstretched hands. "You are him. I would know my Doctor anywhere."

"Well," he said at length with a tick of his head to one side, but kept her held out at arm's length. "I can see your confusion. Really I can. He and I, well. We're like clones or twins – and I am absolutely the more evil version - Same thoughts, same face – Well, not the same face now apparently – but same everything else pretty much." He grinned hopefully. "So now that we have that all clarified, you will need to excuse me. Busy, as I said earlier."

She gave him a look of pure adoration and rounded her arms through the space between the arms he had held on her shoulders, and snapped them downward to circle his arms around her waist. "Such a coy fellow, aren't you my love?"

He swallowed uncomfortably, and even though his arms were around her waist, he was pretty careful to make sure that his hands did not touch any part of her. Nope. Not a single part of her.

"I'm betrothed to another," he admitted suddenly. "You and I. We can't be together. By the law set down by your father, we cannot be."

Eskinda's eyes flared angrily. "You lie," she cried in a seething grunt. "You are promised to me, Doctor."

His face screwed up slightly, apologetically. "Yeah. See. I think that's where the confusion comes in." He managed to free himself to step backward again, arms up and eyes wide. "We were never officially entered into a betrothal commitment. Our parents – yours _and _mine – were against that union. I was too old. You too young. There's almost five centuries of age gap between us."

She tried to reach out for his cheek. "But age means nothing to me, my love."

"Yeah," he said somewhat unsurely. "But it does to me. Five hundred years is an unbridgeable gap." He heard a snort from where Asteon stood. "If you're not going to help, Asteon…"

"Oh. You're doing just fine, Doctor."

Eskinda looked deflated. "But my love. I have searched for you. Longed for you. I travelled the entire universe looking for that beautiful blue box of yours so that we can be together."

"Which is how I can prove to you that I'm not him," he vowed gently. "I don't have a TARDIS. My Brother has the TARDIS, and he is the man you're looking for, not me." He held her arms tenderly. "My hearts, they beat for only one woman. I'm sorry, Eskinda, but those beats belong to another."

Eskinda's eyes dropped angrily to the young brunette girl standing just off to the Doctor's side. "And do they beat for _her_, Doctor? Is this _child_ the one who has your hearts in her hands?" She sneered down, disgusted. "And a _human_?"

The Doctor looked quite insulted at the accusation. "No, Eskinda. She is not."

Eskinda lunged out and snapped a handful of Jane's hair in her hand. He lips curled to assess the one who was her competition. "This. _This_. Is the one who has won the heart of the Doctor?"

"Leave her alone," he demanded sharply. "She's a child, Eskinda."

"A child, indeed," Eskinda snarled. She looked into the Jane's face with an expression of jealous fury. "Who are you, Human? Tell me your name before I cast you off this ship and away from my love."

Jane squealed. The Doctor snarled. He moved forward to free the young girl, but was forced back by Eskinda's presidential guards quickly lifting their guns at him. He stepped back with his hands raised. "Leave her alone," he snapped again. "Do what you want with me, but for the love of your Goddess, let her go."

"So you do love her," she sneered. She pulled the terrified girl toward her, chest against her back, and snarled into her ear. "What is your name, child, so I can remind him of what his infidelity costs him."

Jane whimpered. "Doctor, help me."

"Come on, Eskinda. Love. Please," the Doctor begged. "I'm sorry."

"Tell me your name!" She yelled into the girl's ear.

"Jane," she sobbed. "Jane Graham. My." She hiccupped. "My dad works with the Doctor."

"What?" The Doctor belched. "What?" A breath that was close to a panicked whimper. "_What_? Oh. This. Is. Bad."

Eskinda gave a laugh. "You didn't know about your child love, Doctor?"

"She's _not_ my…" He raked a hand through his hair and began to pace. "TARDIS. I need my TARDIS. I need my ship to go back in time to this morning, and make sure that I never got out of bed. I'll risk the damn paradox."

Eskinda looked with curiosity at the Doctor as he began counting off his fingers. "What are you doing?"

His eyes shot up hot and wide. "I'm just adding up all the things that have gone wrong this evening. Doing the math. This ship has a Time Machine attached to it."

"Don't be so dramatic, love," she crooned. She released the girl's hair and stroked at her long, brown, pony tail. "Saving her is easy enough."

The Doctor had a horrible sinking feeling that he knew where this was headed. With a dark look he thrust his hands deeply into the pocket of his jeans. "Yeah. Right."

Eskinda sashayed across the short space between them and curled her fingers around the back of the Doctor's neck. She tickled lightly at the nape of his neck. "Do you remember how we were back then, Doctor?" Her nose brushed lightly against his. "How good it felt to be together."

"We were never _together_," he argued in a low and husky voice. "It was just flirtation."

"Oh," she moaned. "It was so much more than just flirting."

"Let her go, and we can…" The rest of his words caught as she claimed his mouth with hers. It was an immediate, deep and penetrating kiss that took the wind from his chest. Although her hands and arms sought reciprocated movments of his, the Doctor merely thrust his hands deeper into his jean pockets; so deep that he was in danger of pushing his pants off his hips completely. With wide eyes of panic, he looked to Asteon for help.

Asteon merely thumbed at his nose in amusement and looked at his watch. "Sorry, old friend."

A commanding voice, a woven mix of disgust, jealousy and anger thundered loudly from the doorway to the Command deck.

"Get your mouth off _my_ Time Lord!"


	20. Let the Ladies Play

A/N: As the chapter title says: The ladies get to play while the Doctor looks on proudly… Method to my madness, I promise… I do … There is reason for absolutely EVERYTHING I do… honest

~~oooOOOooo~~

One thing that Rose had decided on this little jaunt of theirs, was that she had finally found her Torchwood team. She'd gone into mad situations with many soldiers from the Torchwood unit, led many a mission, but not until today could she honestly state that she'd been given a team that she truly felt comfortable with.

These guys represented a combination of duty and calm that she had sorely missed since she travelled with the Doctor. That mentality of: _sure, things might be a little on the scary side, but we'll get through it no problem, and in the meantime lets have some fun! Allons-y!_

She was going to insist that her team of five included her Doctor and the three men currently working at her side.

Wilson and Roberts had quickly, silently and efficiently accosted and subdued the two guards standing at the doorway. Both guards were slumped just slightly beyond the doorway, back against back, tied together with a length of Duct tape pulled from Robert's handy little cargo pocket.

A third soldier had quickly been subdued by Mother, herself. It was a shock to all present. A lone guard had snuck up behind the Time Lady and thrust the muzzle of a gun in between her shoulder blades. He had barely gotten out his threat of _If you move I'll shoot_ before the Doctor's mother had spun in place, robes flowing dramatically around her, removed the gun from his possession and had it trained, aimed, locked and loaded on him.

"I believe that the threat is now upon you, young man," she purred across a dark breath. "Now if you wouldn't mind. Please join your friends as swiftly as you can and with as little fuss as possible." She rolled her shoulder dramatically. "I do not like to wield such large and cumbersome weapons, and so my annoyance at such may leave me with little desire but to fire and be done with it."

The guard did as requested. Erickson bit his smile as he stepped in to take the weapon from mother. "Here, love. Let me take that from you." He took her weapon and then turned to the remainder of the team and mouthed a very impressed _wow._

"Thank you, young man," Mother said with a wide smile. "Oh my, how good it feels to be back out there. I feel as young as 500 right now."

"Yeah. O-Kay," Rose managed without trying to hide her amusement as she dealt with assisting Wilson in securing the guards. "Someone mind checking on what our next port of call in this ship is?" She pointed toward yet another corridor entrance.

"You can leave that to me, child," Mother breezed with a smile. She stepped to the doorway and kept silent as she pressed her back into the wall and lightly shifted her attention to what was beyond the corner. Her brows shot high to find that the doorway did not lead to another corridor – as seemed to be all that they'd encountered thus far – but to the main control deck of the craft.

Beyond the breach of the doorway, she could clearly identify pieces of her destroyed TARDIS machine. She could see her son pacing the floor, and had to admit to just a slight amount of thrill to see that after all these years that protective streak could come out of him once he had identified her as the pilot of the downed TARDIS machine.

"Rose, child," she breathed softly. "We have happened upon the target area for your assignment." She looked back to the team commander with a smile. "Shall you and I make our presence known; or are you one to opt for the dramatic entrance with all members of the team?"

"Drama is always fun." Rose stood behind the Doctor's mother and peered over her shoulder to take a look into the room. "Oh yes. There he is," she whispered. "Oh and he doesn't look at all happy."

"He's just realized that I'm on board." Her eyes shifted to look down her shoulder. "And I expect he has concerns regarding my safety."

Rose licked at her lip. "Then we need to let him know you're okay. The Doctor doesn't handle it well when someone he cares about is in danger." Her eyes shot wide at the arrival to the scene of a beautiful ginger-haired woman who obviously had eyes for the Doctor. "Who is she?"

"Oh by Rassilon," Mother moaned. "This is not good at all. Eskinda Durunal, eldest daughter to President Araime Durunal of Theonope." She gave a hard swallow. "She and my son, they had a minor _flirtation_ about three centuries ago. She took their flirtation as something more than it was and approached his father and myself to arrange for an official betrothal ceremony, which we refused. We had no reason to enter into any political relations, and my son certainly didn't wish to _settle down_."

"Three centuries and she still holds a torch for him," Rose snarked. She flicked her hand to Wilson. "Give me your gun."

Wilson jogged toward them. He took a second to peer around the corner, and then snorted in her ear as he took in the image of the Doctor looking quite flustered as he moved through a rather stumbled round of vocal gymnastics. "What is it about that guy?"

She slapped his chest with the back of her hand. "Gun. Now."

"You're not going to shoot her, Rose. Come on," he pleaded. "Give the man the benefit of the doubt here and let him talk his way out of it." He gasped and pointed to the scene. "Listen. _Betrothed_. He just told the girl he's a taken man. All good. No need to shoot a bloody alien political brat and bring about war on Earth."

"I said _gun_. That's an _order_."

Wilson used both hands to hand over his weapon, and immediately backed off to stand on the other side of the doorway from the girls. He offered a last glare as he dropped into a crouch to become the bottom of a totem pole of men peering around the corner into the room ahead of them.

Mother watched with fascination as Rose pressed her backside into the wall and leaned down over the gigantic weapon given to her by Wilson. Rose pulled a small screwdriver from the pocket of her black fatigue pants and removed a small access panel from the side of the gun.

"May I ask what your plan is, child; and how familiar are you with that weapon to be tinkering with it in that manner?"

"Can you please keep an eye on the Doctor," she answered gruffly. "Don't worry. I know what I'm doing."

Mother glanced over her shoulder as Rose switched wires and disconnected some completely. Her eyes widened with captivation as she began to see what the young human woman was doing. "Well. I can see why my son adores you in the way that he does. That is very devious. Very clever."

Rose locked the weapon between her knees as she continued to pull and tug, and reset wires. "I've learned from the best," she mused from around the screwdriver stuck between her teeth. She suddenly raised her eyes to the ceiling in concentration and muttered numbers in a whisper as she drew the screwdriver from her mouth.

"72540CV –dot – 648S – slash – 0," mother suggested with a smile. "That would be _my_ option."

Rose gave a short laugh. "Oh yes. I like that. Perfect." She entered in the numbers provided by Mother and then screwed the panel shut. She looked to the door. "So what's happening in there, right now?"

Erickson bit at his lip and shook his head with short movements. Roberts swallowed hard and lifted one side of his lip in a wince. Wilson dropped his forehead into his palm and moaned.

Mother and Rose didn't like the look of that, and both slid an eye around the corner of the door. The vision of a gorgeous _ginger_ with her lips locked onto the Doctor's mouth drew a disgusted growl from the chest of Rose Tyler. "Oh. No. You. Don't," she snarled.

Wilson, Roberts and Erickson immediately peeled off the wall and checked their weapons. Wilson moved to Rose's side and flicked his hand in an order for the other two to join them. "Let's back her up, guys."

Mother leaned down to Rose and whispered a dark challenge in her ear. "Time to stake claim to that which is yours, Child."

Rose took three large strides into the room. She raised her weapon to her target and flicked a switch on its side to allow it to very loudly charge up for use. She planted her feet firmly and looked along the barrel of the weapon. "Take your mouth off _my_ Time Lord!"

Eskinda immediately tore her mouth from the Doctor's and spun toward the source of the heated demand. "And just who do you think…" Her words caught in her throat at the sight of a gun the size of a cannon aimed in her direction. "Who?"

The Doctor's mouth hung wide as he took in the more panoramic view of events. A Five-person team, standing in a perfect V-Formation. Rose – his beautiful, and obviously pissed off, Rose – front and centre with her gun trained on the Presidential daughter. Flanked either side of, and just a few steps back was the soldier he knew as Wilson. Beside him, with a small weapon in her hand…

His entire expression lengthened in complete relief and shock.

His mother. The Doctor's mother, in her Prydonian robed glory. Safe. _Well_, as safe as she could be given the current circumstance.

He mouthed her title and a query to her condition, ready to run to her aid if she needed his assistance. He was relieved to receive a smile and a wink from her direction, and so with that, he turned his focus to Eskinda and Rose.

"Reason 57 as to why going back on my own timeline to avoid this evening is worth a paradox," he muttered to himself as he stepped toward Rose.

"Rose," he called with a playful smile. "Honey. This isn't at all what it looks like."

"Of course not," she snapped sarcastically as she juggled the weapon for comfort. "She just _fell_ onto your mouth and the resulting gasp of embarrassment from both parties caused vapour lock, am I right."

He had to admit. That was a pretty good comeback.

Eskinda was less impressed. "And just who is this _woman_ who claims a right to you, Doctor?"

The doctor scratched sheepishly a the back of his head. "That would be Rose, my blushing bride to be." His brows creased together. "Who is probably a little more territorial than I expected her to be."

"Wolves are very territorial," she responded with a slide of her darkest glare toward the Doctor. "Especially with its mate, of which this female has decided to try to claim for herself." Her eyes slid back to Eskinda if only to prevent herself from busting with laughter if she kept looking at the Doctor. "And now. You."

He looked momentarily panicked. "You can put the gun down, Rose."

"No. That won't be happening any time soon," she growled. Her full attention settled on Eskinda. "Under section 2, sub section 43B, article 3 of the Theonope Family Law, passed on the day of the ascension to power of his Excellency President Araime Durunal; seeking the affections of another who has clearly stated to be betrothed to another is a crime punishable by detainment in a criminal housing facility for no less than 90 days."

"What," Eskinda spluttered.

"What?" The Doctor managed in much the same manner. "How in Rassilon did you know _that_?"

"I spent some time in the high courts of Theonope," Rose answered dryly.

"Not for _that_ reason, you didn't."

"Further to that article," Rose continued. "Unwarranted and forced advances of an otherwise unavailable individual who has not only stated quite clearly their betrothal, but expresses a non-desire to engage in affectionate behavior; is a crime punishable up to and including death, the punishment to be decreed on an incident by incident basis."

"And are you to be my juror, then, _human_?"

"Ye-p," Rose answered with a loud pop of the P and an evil smile.

"Come on then," the Doctor interrupted gently. "That's not the law, Rose. While I admire your improvisational skills more than I probably should – you know how I feel about.."

"No. She's right," Asteon chirped in with an impressed air. "Our President doesn't take lightly to such matters since his first wife played around on him back before he took power. What your Rose says is word-perfect."

"It _is_?"

"And as the woman who is your betrothed, the punishment is hers to decree," he added with a shrug.

"Rose," the Doctor warned sharply. "Don't do this. It isn't worth it." He moved to step in front of Eskinda, but was halted by Rose shifting the aim of the weapon toward him.

"She had her tongue in _your_ mouth, Doctor," she challenged. "You didn't seem to want to tear yourself away like you would have if I'd gone for that kiss twelve months ago. I'd tread carefully if I were you."

"Rose!"

Eskinda noted a slight moment of victory. "Then there was no protest from him for you to warrant such punishment, was there?"

Rose rolled her eyes and hauled her gigantic gun through the air toward Eskinda. "Oh I've had enough of you," she snarled as she pulled back on the trigger and fired a line of blue light toward the President's daughter.

Eskinda disappeared inside of blue light and a frightened scream.

Rose dropped the nose of the gun to the floor and pressed it into the ground with a lean. "Damn this thing is heavy."

The Doctor was completely aghast. "Rose!" He yelled as he circled the area that Eskinda had occupied only seconds earlier. "What did you do?" His eyes shot up to her. "Do you have any idea what you've done; what kind of repercussions can come of this?"

She filled her cheeks with air and rolled her eyes with a shrug. "Well…"

"This is so brilliantly bad," he continued as he paced. "How are we going to explain this; that my girlfriend killed President Durunal's daughter in a fit of jealousy?"

Rose leaned her chin on the end of the gun and watched tiredly as the Doctor continued to pace. "Doctor?"

He spun on her. "Rose. How could you even begin to think that I would be in any way okay with this? You know how I feel about," he swirled his hand in the air to indicate her weapon. "How I feel about _shooting_ people?"

"You're okay with teleportation, though, yes?"

"Of course I am," he snapped.

"Good," she cooed. "So then come here. Give me one of your _so good to see you_ hugs, and then we can set about trying to get this ship back home to where it belongs." She looked at her watch. "Roberts was able to buy us some extra time up here, and I would really love one of those _everyone survived_ missions for once. Wouldn't you?"

His brow flicked. "Teleport," he remarked on a dry and cracked voice.

"Yes," Rose answered with a smile. "I was able to reroute the bypass the of main Xion Crystal energy of the gun to power a teleport stream instead of a stun or phaser." She kept her chin on the gun but twisted her gaze to look at the Time Lady off to her side. "Using the coordinates suggested by Mother, I was able to create a teleport directly to the holding cell that we found Mother being held in."

"_You_ did that?" His voice was full of awe. "I didn't know that you even knew how."

"Neither did I," she answered with a grin as she straightened up, blew on her fingernails and rubbed them on her chest. "But, clever me, right?"

The doctor scooped her up into a tight hug and purred against her ear. "My brilliant Rose."

Her grin was almost painful as she allowed herself a moment to enjoy the embrace. She looked over his shoulder and gasped as she struggled away from him. "What the hell is Marcus' daughter doing here," she demanded.

"Oh," he answered. "She was working in the store you sent me to and got beamed up here at the same time I did. She was scared, so she came along with me."

"Marcus will skin you alive, Doctor," she panted worriedly.

Jane arrogantly folded her arms across her chest and slouched her hip to one side. "He can be angry all he wants. I don't care." She looked adoringly at the Doctor. "He cares about me more than my Dad does. Dad's always at work or on the phone talking about work." She strode to the gawking soldiers with the typical air of a brat teen girl, muttering under her breath.

Rose pressed her finger to her lips as she watched the teen stalk off. "Yeah. Okay. So. You have an admirer, Doctor. Be careful, yeah?" She swallowed. "Teenage girls can tell pretty vivid tales, you know."

He nodded. "Yes."

"So," Rose said with cheer to break the moment. She clapped, and then rubbed her hands together. "How about you go give your mum a big hug, tell her you love her and it's really good to see her, while I look into doing some jiggery pokery around this console." She cupped her chin with her hand and looked through the mess of the command room. Her voice fell to distracted mumbling to herself. "In order to utilize temporal fusion to close the dimensional rift, I'm going to have to locate that pesky Space Time Warping Template. Where to find that in a destroyed Type 51 is a bit of a thinker." She suddenly turned on the spot. "Doctor, I don't think we have enough power to get them through the rift and then back to Theonope. What are your chances of trying to create a hypercube to let the Doctor of the next parallel know we need his help?"

His jaw was long and gaped. His eyes wide.

"Doctor?"

He shook himself. "Oh. Yes. I can put something together right smart." His eyes narrowed slightly in query. He spoke cautiously. "I was thinking that we could make use of sub-routine Sigma 9 to power them across the rift. What do _you _think?"

"Ooh," she sang. "Great idea. Will probably lose part of the ship, however, but if we can bypass the automatic jettison protocols, we can select which sections of the ship we lose instead of the random selection of the TARDIS."

"Yes. Quite right." The Doctor stuck his tongue in his cheek and had his eyes rolled high as he slowly turned toward his mother. He took in a breath and lowered his eyes to her. "Oh," he breathed lightly. "I think that you and I are going to have a little, tiny, bit of a discussion about …" he swirled his finger in the air and then pointed to Rose. "About why my non-Time Lord girlfriend all of a sudden knows so many intimate details about Time Lord Technology."

Mother leaned forward. "Because she is _brilliant,_ my son."

"Yes she is. As are you," he breathed accusingly even as he leaned down to kiss her cheek. "It's good to see you again."

"And you, my son."

The doctor clapped his hands. "Right-Oh. Let's see about getting these fine people back to their side of the dimensional wall and then home." He looked to Asteon. "Old Friend. Could you please arrange to have the Human visitors brought up to the main deck? We're going to have to leave quick-smart once we set these controls in place, and it would just make it that little bit easier if I didn't have to go running through corridors to find them."

Asteon gave a light bow. "Of course, Doctor." He passed by the Doctor's mother and paused to take her hand in his and press a kiss against her knuckles. "As always, my Lady, you have provided us with a fine adventure." He grinned against her knuckles. "Your identity should have been clear to me from the start. It has your time signature all over it."

"It is with my humblest apologies that you were inconvenienced, Asteon. I hope that you understand it was at Rassilon's decree that these events were to take place."

"I imagine so," he cooed softly. "And, as ever, should you ever decide that your loomling's father is no longer the Lord for you…"

"I will let you know," she laughed. "But know that I will always love and honour my husband until my passing day."

The Doctor watched his friend out of the corner of his eye as he put together the message cube for his brother across the parallel. "What were you saying, Rose, about Theonope Family Law? Is there anything about hitting on someone's mother?"

His mother took position beside him and stroked reassuringly at his arm. "It is just playful banter, my son. Nothing more."

The Doctor rolled his eyes.

Mother rolled up the sleeves of her robe. "And so. To return this ship to its original path. How may I be of assistance? And before you argue with me, young Lord, just remember that three Time Lord minds are better than two."

~~oooOOOooo~~

Ten minutes later, and the team of Rose, Mother and the Doctor felt sure that they had done enough _jiggery-pokery_ to be able to power the ship across the breach. Rose was still underneath the main console as the Doctor spun the hypercube on his finger, and then launched it baseball-pitch style into the air.

"Go find that brother of mine," he hollered after it. "And give him the _full_ message will you, no truncating it to what you think is best said." He shrugged at Rose's eye peeking out through wiring at him. "I had a few things I wanted to say, and this is the only chance that I'm going to get to do it."

Rose wriggled out from under the console and remained lying on the ground as she folded her arms across her chest and looked up at him. "I hope that you played nice."

He pressed one hand into the countertop to loom over her. "I merely sent a message of thanks. Thanks for leaving me here in a parallel world with nothing, but with everything at the same time. We're happy. I'm happy. You're happy. We're in love. We'll be undertaking the marital bonding ceremony in the very near future. He's not invited, or he can be and can pout in the corner. And one day we're going to have a tribe of loomlings or womb-born children that we won't be naming after him."

She held up her hand to ask his assistance in pulling her to her feet. "If your mum doesn't give you a clip around the ear for that, I will."

"Please," he said as he pulled her to her feet. "I just advised of the situation and that he was required for assistance of a disabled ship stuck out of time. Honest." He looked to the console. "And how are we looking, ladies?"

"All good here," Rose said with a proud smile. "The Space Time Warp Template is programmed, and the jettison protocols modified to retain as much as the ship as possible."

Mother wiped at her brow. "I have the artron energy moving through the 2LO Energy Distributor, and have bypassed the feed into the transpower system of this ship."

The Doctor was impressed. "My very clever ladies. Brilliant! You're both just brilliant."

His mother sighed with a smile. "Of course we are, my son. We are two Ladies of Time, of course we are brilliant."

"Pardon me? Two _what_?"

"Not all brilliant news from me, though." Rose leaned against the console and wiped her hand on her thighs. "The Dynamorphic Generators are set not to exceed 1000 Omegas, and we need more power than that for a ship this size. The damage to the generators means that I can't attempt to bypass those protocols. However, I was able to rewire the Matrix to have the TARDIS divert all power to this ship's drive systems. Problem is, the power levels have to be monitored until the moment of breach."

The Doctor leaned down once more to his mother. "Oh yes. A discussion when we're on the ground. You and me. We need to talk. At great length." He gave a wide grin to his beloved. "So. That means you return to Torchwood with Mother and your team, and the hostages, and I can handle the tricky stuff up here and meet you on the ground, say, in ten minutes and we can head out for Chips?"

Rose pressed her lips together and shook her head. "Nope," a pop of the P. "This time you're heading back and I'm finalizing the dimensional jump. After all – and I'm thrilled that I can _actually_ say this – because I have more dimensional jump experience than you do."

His face fell. "No. That isn't how it goes."

"If we were facing a time maneouvre, or blasting the craft into our own space and universe, then you have at her. This one's mine." She was perfectly thrilled about it. "I'll be down in a jiffy, Doctor. I promise you."

He cleared his throat. "And now it becomes clear, and I see it."

"What's that?"

"How it feels to be the one who gets sent away." He frowned. He didn't like that feeling. "No. We can do it together, jump us all home at the same time. Noone left behind."

"Too risky for a multi-person leap when we get into max power." She looked to Mother for assistance. "And besides. I think mum over there needs a checkup to make sure that she's in fine health and fitness after her scary incarceration."

Initially ready to counter with a promise that she was perfectly fine, Mother caught Rose's pleading look and began to sway on her feet. "Oh yes. I think she's right, my Son. I am feeling rather listless and lightheaded."

He caught her as she gave an Oscar Winning dramatic fall with her forearm across her brow. "Mother, are you okay?"

"Get her home," Rose ordered. "You're the only one down there who knows Time Lord biology."

He knew full well that he was being played by both women – he was no fool – but he was willing to offer the benefit of the doubt and see just what his beautiful Rose was truly capable of. He knew that there was enough time between breach and closure that even if she couldn't make it back on her own, he could be on board with a transmat disk and have her back in a flash.

"Okay," he acqueised as he snatched her into a hug. He pressed his lips to hers in a chaste kiss, drawing back with a loudsmack sound. "Good luck," he wished with his forehead against hers. "I'll be waiting for you."

"I love you," she promised. "Now scoot."

"I love you most," he said with a wink and click of air through his teeth as he strode toward the departing party. "Asteon, my old friend. Good luck to you. I wish you good speed and a bloody good retirement."

Asteon took the Doctor's hand to shake it firmly. "Thank you, my friend. My best to you and your lovely future wife, may you be blessed with a house full of loomlings as devilish as yourself."

The Doctor gathered the group and gave a two-fingered salute from his brow. "Until next time."

Rose leaned to the console to both activate the Sigma-9 protocol and activate the transmat beam. She waved to the party as they disappeared and held firm to the controls as the power to the TARDIS/Theonope hybrid craft increased to capacity. As she felt the stomach dropping sensation of a ship accelerating violently, a familiar wheeze and whine combination filled the air around her.

She watched with stinging eyes a blue box slowly materialize in front of her.

"Oh, hell," she moaned. "You're early."


	21. Closure

A/N: Sorry about this chapter … but I think Rose needs it.

~~oooOOOooo~~

The Time Lord/Human group materialized in the Control Room of Torchwood inside a transparent dome of blue surrounded by forking deep blue tendrils of electricity. It took only a short moment for the energies to dissipate, and each Torchwood member immediately moved from the circle toward communications and surveillance stations.

The room was oddly clear of staff, with only Pete Tyler and Spencer present in the room. It was Pete Tyler who noticed there was a member missing.

"Where's Rose," he demanded hotly as the Doctor shot by him to access a monitoring console. He fell so heavily into the chair that it rolled partway from the keyboard on two wheels.

The Doctor grabbed at the table edge to drag himself back into position. He quickly moved his fingers across the keyboard to initialize contact with the Theonope craft.

"She'll be right down," he answered in a voice holding far less worry than he was experiencing. "Just had a bit of Timey Wimey stuff to deal with."

"And you just _left_ her there?"

"No choice," he growled. He cupped at his chin as the contact bridge was established and he could view the ship's systems and security data. He let his head dropdown into the space between his arms as the read-out showed an additional Artron energy signature. "Good. He's there."

"Who?" Spencer asked cautiously as he noted a slight shift in the Doctor's body language. A shift that wasn't entirely positive.

"The Doctor," he answered with a sniff. He pushed his hands into the countertop to push himself to a stand. "The _other_ Doctor."

Pete noted the shaking manner in which the Doctor stood and set his hand on his shoulder as though offering support. "Are you okay with that?"

He nodded, but kept his head down. "Intentional, I assure you. I made sure that he'd be there before Rose had a chance to get back." He gulped a heavy breath of air and wiped at his nose with the back of his hand. He straightened with a creased face and gasped to centre himself. "Right," he said with a swallow as he switched from worry to business. "So. Let's get the debriefing done so we can get our new friends home safe and sound."

Neither Spencer nor Pete bought into his calm for a second. Pete pointed a finger to Spencer. "Monitor those readings. I want to know the instant we have verification that the Ship has left our dimension and that Rose has left the ship."

"On it, Boss man," Spencer chirped as he wheeled on his chair toward the desk, pushing the chair that the Doctor had vacated seconds earlier out of the way.

Pete vaguely noticed the approach of a woman dressed in a robe as he stood like a looming sentinel guard beside the lightly slouching Doctor. "Are you sure you know what you're doing, Doctor?"

"It's better her than me," he answered on an unsure voice. He looked down his arm when he felt his Mother's light touch. "Oh. I hope I'm doing the right thing."

"Believe in her, my son," she said softly. "Her hearts, they belong to you."

He wiped his hand down his face and shuddered a breath.

_I'm him._

_And he's me._

"That's what I'm worried about."

Pete cast a wary glance toward the woman in the regal wear. "My Son?"

The doctor didn't raise his eyes, but he swept his hand between Pete, on his left, and his mother, on his right. "Pete, this is my Mother. Mother, this is Pete. Rose's father."

Mother politely acknowledged the introduction with a dip of her head and a warm smile of greeting. "I look forward to the moment where we can meet as parents to our beautiful children and discuss their future as a bonded couple."

"Uh, yeah. You too," Peter answered gruffly, more in confusion than being deliberately being rude. He leaned down to the Doctor. "And I'm looking forward to some explanations."

"Yeah," he managed through tacky lips. "Yeah."

Mother stroked at her son's arm, feeling pained at his sudden and worrying desperation. "She will return to you, my Son."

He turned his head away from her with the intent to shield her from his grief at the thought of Rose potentially running off with the other Doctor.

"You will not look away from me, young Lord," she demanded sharply. Her expression softened quickly as she coaxed his face to hers. "Think. Use that big Time Lord brain of yours, and think of her. If there is one thing that you know you can believe in. One thing throughout all of space and time that you can trust. One thing."

His panic moved to confidence. "I believe in _her."_

~~ooOOOooo~~

Rose's hands held firm on the power dampening lever as the TARDIS materialized about ten feet off to her left. She winced with effort as the lever fought against her hold in a demand from the Matrix to allow access to the main drives. She couldn't release the full power just yet. They hadn't yet made it to the breach, and she needed to hold that final thrust until just the right moment.

"Asteon," she called desperately as she tried to ignore the telltale creak of the TARDIS door over the top of the straining engines. "Please help me with this. The artron energy bypass is slipping, I have to reset the 2LO Energy Distributor, or the feed into the transpower system will fail. I need you to secure the dampener until I can make the fix."

A figure moved quickly into the trouble area, and armed with a green-lit sonic screwdriver, artfully, calmly, made the necessary repairs to the bypass. He lifted his eyes to look through a floppy, side swept fringe across the console. "Hello Rose."

"You are a _Time_ Lord," she gritted through her teeth. "Why can't you ever make it on time at the _right_ time."

His brows creased in puzzlement. "But I am on time," he clarified. "As per the time coordinates from the hypercube."

"You're ten minutes early." She blew out a breath as she monitored the power data to pick the precise moment to give this ship all it had. "I should have been long gone before you showed up."

"Oh," he breathed with high brows and a lick at his lip. "I see. I suppose that my _brother_ – as he appears to have taken to calling me – didn't fully advise you of the message content."

"Unless the cube contained something other than him announcing our engagement and how you may or may not come and how none of our kids are going to be named after you, then no. I wasn't exactly briefed. We were all kind of busy at the time." She flicked her chin to him and looked at a handle in front of him. "Can you do me a favour right now and hold on to something?"

"Swift change in topic."

"Necessary change," she grunted. "Full thrust in 3. 2. 1."

She shoved the lever down and the ship lurched violently forward, which threw the Doctor against the console and Rose flying backward. She squeaked as she collided with someone else, and made fast apologies as she scrambled off them. "I'm so sorry about that. I really wasn't sure which direction she was going to go in."

The redheaded girl on the ground gave a rueful smile and held up her hand to ask to be assisted to her feet. "It's okay. Not like I haven't been tossed about like this more than once." She held out her hand. "I'm Amy, by the way." She flicked a look to the console. "I'm travelling with the Doctor – who you seem to already know."

"Good to meet you. I'm Rose. Rose Tyler." Rose set her hands on her hips and twisted her trunk to look down her shoulder at him. "Well. It's clear that you have a thing for Gingers, Doctor." She pulled her long pony tail around to inspect the colour. "No wonder I didn't stand a chance, you know, being blonde."

The Doctor walked around the console and dipped his head to regard her with a weary look. "Tell me that we aren't going to do this, Rose." He shook his head. "Not _this_."

"What," she challenged playfully with a tongue in her teeth smile. "Me get all testy because you left me on a deserted beach in Norway in a parallel world with your apparently evil battle born brother without so much as a _good bye_?"

That made him smile. "You were making out on the beach with –_well_ - With my _brother_." He shrugged and looked away a moment. "I was only being polite in giving you your space to continue with your fornication."

"Fornication? Oh," she breathed with pursed lips and a nod. Slowly she looked through her lashes at him. "And with that defense I'm supposed to just smile, say _oh jolly good then_, _now come and give me a hug you beautifully daft floppy haired alien jerk_?"

"That would be preferable." With that he smiled an inviting grin and opened his arms to her. "Come here."

Rose launched from where she stood into a familiar, yet unfamiliar embrace. His smell was the same, as was the beating of his hearts against her ear, so she closed her eyes to imagine Doctor of Ten holding her tight. "I've missed you."

His arms moved tightly around her and he nestled his cheek against her hair. "You too, Rose." He pulled back and looked down into her eyes. He stroked his hand along her cheek. "I had forgotten just how much I." He paused just short of finishing his thought. "Yes. Very good to see you."

Rose rolled her eyes and shook her head as she pulled back from him. "Still can't voice it, hey?"

He cleared his throat. "Voice what?"

"Never mind," she said on a sigh. She looked to Amy. "You would think that with age and regenerations he might mellow the hell out a bit and, oh, I don't know, admit things." She looked down her shoulder at him. "_Act_ on things."

His head remained dipped and his expression hidden behind his floppy bangs. "Are you suggesting that you want me to _act_ on something?"

She raised her hands quickly and backed off a step. "No. No. I'm perfectly okay with you not _acting_ on anything right now."

"And if I did?" His voice was husky.

_That_ was a challenge that caught her off guard.

"What?"

Amy raised her hand lightly. "You know. Not that I'm not enjoying watching raggedy man here get all uncomfortable in the presence of what I can only imagine is an ex-girlfriend…"

"_Not_ girlfriend," both the Doctor and Rose injected simultaneously.

"Well, me thinks thou doth protest too much," Amy snickered. "So." Her eyes flared momentarily in tease. "_Not _girlfriend/boyfriend, yeah." She pointed sharply at the Doctor. "I saw those arms of yours snap around her and latch on tight. No denying that there's _something_…"

"Former companion," Rose interrupted quickly. "Me and him," she paused and raised a brow at his different face. "Okay, me and him number Nine and him number Ten. We travelled together for a bit."

"Until he dumped you on a deserted beach in Norway with his brother," Amy finished. "Yes. I got that much. Classy move, Doctor."

"And let me guess. No mention of me at all, right?"

Amy wasn't quite sure of the best way to answer that question. Telling the truth would very likely get the Doctor in to trouble. She cleared her throat against her fist. "So. Nine and Ten. Andd he has a _brother_?"

"Oh yes. And his brother is quite dashing," Rose chuckled as she slid toward Amy and pulled out her cell phone. "Want to see pictures of them all?" She winked across at him. "He just _loves_ it when you make comparisons between his former and current selves."

"No, actually I don't."

"Oh, of course you do." She held the phone to Amy. "Go on. Take a look." She thumbed toward the TARDIS. "I'm just going to go say hello to the old girl and pick up a few things that I left behind." She looked at her watch. "Walls will close in ten, so I've got time."

The Doctor watched her leap over some fallen debris toward the open door of the TARDIS. He didn't hesitate in following her through the door and into the console room, where she had skidded to a stop with a pained look on her face.

"She looks so different," Rose whimpered sadly. "I don't recognize any part of her."

"Change was necessary," he said softly. "My last regeneration was rather explosive this time around. She was close to completely destroyed."

She turned her head to speak over her shoulder to him. "Why's that?"

"I didn't want to go," he admitted. "Vanity, I suppose. I did rather fancy how I looked." He adjusted his bowtie and ran his hair through his bangs. "That isn't to say that I'm not _happy_ with my appearance this time around. Much younger."

Rose just nodded quietly as she ran her fingertips along the new console. "Hello, sweetheart. Miss me?" She leaned down to press a light kiss into the console, which drew very high brows form the Doctor. "I've missed you, old girl. I hope he's treating you right."

"Of course I treat her right," he snapped defensively.

"You used to beat her with a rubber mallet," Rose argued. "My poor girl. No wonder she got testy with you sometimes."

"Here. She's _my_ girl." He strode toward her and pressed his finger to her chest. "I think that you have a very unhealthy relationship with my ship."

"And you don't?"

"She and I are connected," he argued as he tapped his temple.

"And for a moment in time she and I were joined as one," she answered with an adoring look toward the console. "Do you remember?"

"I'm not going to forget it," he admitted.

"No," she sighed. "Neither am I." She gave a coy smile. "You died for me that day." She then blinked and looked away from him. "If I believed for a single moment that you had a romantic bone in your body, I might think you fancied me a little."

He looked at her with a raised brow. Her tongue in her cheek, and her jaw stretched behind her closed mouth was her classic tell that she was looking for him to say something _anything_ that could be construed as a compliment a'la Docteur. "You really do want to hear me say it, don't you?"

She pressed her lips together and shook her head. "Not anymore." She looked at him through her lashes. "There once was a time that it was the only thing in the universe that I wanted," she admitted. Then she shook her head and looked down to where her finger was picking at a spot on the console. "I wanted to hear it. I _needed_ to hear it."

"I didn't think it was that important to you, Rose," he said as one of his brows fell apologetically. "I thought it went without saying."

"But did you," she asked meekly. "Did you love me?"

"I still do."

She sniffed back tears. "You're not allowed to admit that now."

"But you asked."

"And you're supposed to lie," she growled. She took a moment to steady herself and looked at him with red eyes. "I'm Time Lady now, apparently."

He exhaled a breath and nodded. "I know."

"How?"

He tapped at his head with his index finger. "I can feel it. Up here." He shrugged. "Add to that how well you knew the TARDIS system. It wasn't difficult to determine where the tickle in my mind was coming from."

"And the remnants of the Type-51 TARDIS didn't lead you to think that there was a Lord on board from Gallifrey?"

"You just called it the Type-51," he remarked with a smile and a wink as he drew his thumb along her cheek. "And considering most of the production run was scrapped, and…?"

She shot him a look of pure question. "And what?"

"You tell me," he said with a waggling brow of encouragement.

Her jaw fell as recognition fell upon her. "Oh are you kidding me?"

"Well no I wasn't," He muttered. "I honestly thought you'd be able to finish that."

"Well, yes. I can," she said with a fast roll of her eyes. "The Type-51 TARDIS production run was scrapped and the remaining crafts removed from the registry. Some reports suggest that the Celestial Intelligence Agency Interventionists utilized the unregistered TARDIS machines, though Rassilon only knows why, as they were a desperately unreliable machine prone to throwing temper tantrums not even a two year old is capable of." She poked a finger into his chest, not at all amused by his giggle from being tickled. "I'm not all creeped out by _that_." She reconsidered that statement. "Okay, maybe I am. A little bit. But oh…"

The light went off in his mind and he winced with a duck of his head as he waited for it. "Yeah. I forgot about that."

"Professor Noble!"

"Now. Rose. I can explain that."

She backed up. A Mixed emotion of disgust, horror and amusement shot through her chest. "You tutored me for my full grade ten year in science!"

"And you got an A-minus," he said proudly. "I _knew_ you were brilliant. You just needed that little bit of one-on-one guidance to get you there."

"I don't know if that's just plain creepy or completely romantic that you would go back into my timeline and do that."

"I didn't lie to you when I said I missed you," he admitted. "In fact," he said with a meek smile. "You're probably one of the very few people I haven't routinely lied to. Except for the tutoring thing, of course."

"Oh, I can't wait to tell the Doctor this," she giggled with her hand over her mouth. "He's going to get a real kick out of that."

"You don't have to tell him," the Doctor mumbled as he leaned his butt on the console edge and folded his arms across his chest.

"Yeah, I do." She rubbed his arm. "But thank you. Really."

He took her hand in his. "The wall is closing soon, so I want to ask you one last question before you leave."

"Sure."

"If I asked you to, would you stay with me." His eyes were pleading. "Stay with me here, on the TARDIS, with that promise of forever?"

She stepped into the space between his parted legs and set her hands on his knees. She rolled up onto her toes and pressed a soft and lingering kiss on his mouth. It surprised her to feel his hands settle on her waist to pull her ever so slightly closer to him. "There was a time," she breathed with her lips only a milimetre from his. "That I would have moved heaven and earth to give you every single second of my forever."

His eyes were closed as he let his lips brush across hers. "But not now? Even if I spoke those words you want me to say?"

She pressed her finger against his lips and pressed her lips against her finger. "My _forever_, however many centuries I have of it, belongs to him now." She opened her eyes to look upon his closed eyelids. Her lips remained on the finger held against his mouth. "I love him, Doctor. He loves me. He loves me so much."

He ran his hands up and down her sides and lightly pushed her from him. He didn't release her waist from his hands. "Remember that those feelings he has, were also mine."

"But he has never been too proud, or too scared to tell me." She held his hands. "He tells me every day. He shows me how he feels. He proves it in ways I didn't' even think were possible."

"Then make sure he continues to tell you and prove how much you mean to him," he cupped the back of her head and drew her forehead to press against his. "Make sure he always lets you know that you're the most important person in the universe to him."

"I don't need to…"

"If he ever lets you down, Rose. Promise me that you'll find me. Let me know." He pressed his forehead harder against hers. Unbidden passion from within him stirring to the surface. "Because I promise you. I will tear down the walls of the universe to come for you. I can. I _will_ be brave for you, Rose. I will."

She hooked her hand around his wrist and took his hand from the back of her head. "You're three years too late to make that promise, Doctor."

"It's never too late," he said with a sloppy and sorrowful smile. "Not for a Time Lord."

She slid her hand down the lapel of his jacket and threaded her hand underneath. The movement made him close his eyes and tremble. "Rose," he shuddered out.

"Down boy," she giggled as she drew his sonic screwdriver from his pocket, along with the psychic paper wallet. She held them up to him as he opened his eyes. "A gift to your brother, yes?"

He rolled his eyes and leaned back on the console. "Okay, Sexy," he purred to the ship with a wink to Rose. "You have _his_, right?" He pointed at the one she held in her hand. "Because I need that one."

The console opened up and the Screwdriver wielded by the Tenth Doctor rose up on a small cradle. The Doctor picked it up and eyed it with an unimpressed look before handing it over. "Here you go. Tell him to be careful with it, it's took some TARDIS brilliance to get that thing operational again after I. Well."

"You broke it," she laughed.

"Maybe a little." He pulled up from the console and gave her a hug. "Good luck, Rose. While I may continually say that we're saying good bye forever, it appears that our paths are always destined to cross. So, no goodbye this time."

A lens click had Rose immediately pulling away from the Doctor with a gasp. Amy gave a laugh and tossed the phone to Rose. She walked to stand beside the Doctor against the console. "A momento for you to show his brother that he was making moves on his girl."

Rose raised her chin and laughed. "Even if we had CCT footage and Rassilon himself making that claim, he wouldn't believe it."

"I wouldn't be so sure," the Doctor countered. "He and I both possess quite an irrational jealous streak."

Amy and rose shared a look, and then both burst into laughter. "Yeah. _That_ is something we'd love to see."

Rose backed up to the air and held her phone up. "Selfie," she chirped as she leaned against the Doctor and Amy. She snapped the candid photograph as the Doctor mischieviously pressed his lips against her cheek and winked at the camera and held his fingers as bunny ears behind Amy's head. She spun and stepped back to take a much nicer one of him with the hope to give it to his Mother.

Rose dropped into a crouch to pick up her bag and waved to the Doctor and Amy. "Flick that switch, Time Boy and send me back home to my Time Lord."

He shook his head with a smile and leaned back to activate the transmat beam from the TARDIS to send her home. "Until we meet again, my sweet Rose," he called as she blew him a kiss and disappeared from the TARDIS. His smile fell and he blew back a kiss into the now empty space.

"I love you, Rose Tyler."


	22. Love of a Time Lord

A/N: Let me just start by saying: _Holy Reviews Batman!_ Thanks for your reactions to the Closure Chapter. I almost didn't get through that one. I had about 7 ways to go with it (I wrote three of them) and was thisclose to packing it all in and having Rose just magically get away with good old 11 just watching her go before anything could be said… But I pushed ahead.

So thank you. Thank you! I'm thrilled to know that people are enjoying my tale! I feel all warm and gooey inside. Such a groovy incentive to keep going with it!

This – and likely the next – chapter are all about the final duckies being lined up. We are very swiftly (2 chapters or so) approaching something pretty massive that will bring in an unexpected player that I'm somewhat desperate to wreak some havock on/with/to . Then we slide toward fulfilling the word of Rassilon while we try to calm down the _Oncoming Storm _and stop him from becoming_ the Bringer of Darkness… _ I hope that you can continue to follow this journey, because it is far from over.

**Oh, and BTW – this is VERY IMPORTANT before you move forward**. This particular chapter … While it's not something exceptionally gratuitous (because explicit smut really has no place in moving this forward), the rating is absolutely definitely M because there are descriptives. Love between a Time Lord and Lady is a beautiful thing, especially when the Lord has just had the wits scared out of him. You have been warned … and this is somewhat important to the next chapter, so sorry. It's in.

I will apologise in advance for any of you who might balk at how I handle Tentoo in this chapter. I always saw Ten as being the most passionate, emotive and reactive of the Doctors. I'm letting that side of him come out in this bit because, just for my own thrill (I admit it), I want to see him actually slightly lose his shit at the thought of losing Rose.

~~oooOOOooo~~

"The ship is accelerating rapidly and is approaching the breach," Spencer called over his shoulder. "Judging by these readings, that thing's gotto be pulling about 30G's." He twisted in his chair and put his arm across the backrest to eyeball the trio behind him. "That's way beyond human tolerance levels, Doc."

Pete winced. The Doctor ran calculations in his mind. "With a ship that large, and provided the gravity stabilizers are fully functioning, Rose should be okay."

"And if they aren't, Doc?" Spencer was clearly concerned. "That's a sustained G-pull, which is non survivable at half that rate."

"Spencer," he managed. "Just stop. She's going to be fine. She and I, we've survived worse." There was a distinct crack in his voice, which didn't go unnoticed by anyone left in the command room. "And we still came out laughing."

"Don't worry about her, Son," Mother offered gently, with a light stroking of his arm.

He inhaled a long and shaking breath through a gaped mouth. "I can't help it." He pressed his hands into the console and leaned heavily against them. He turned his head to look down his slumped shoulder toward his mother. "This is _it_ for me, isn't it?"

Pete chuckled knowingly. Mother simply looked confused. "I don't understand," she said with a frown.

"Meaning that he's done for. Life as he knew it is over." Pete advised as his hand came down on the Doctor's shoulder. "Love'll do that to any man – especially the great ones." He tightened his grip on the Doctor's shoulder. "Get yourself a jump pad, Doctor. Go up there and make sure she comes home, okay? I haven't told Jackie what's going on yet, and I really don't want to have to until we know Rose is home safe."

The Doctor pressed his lips tightly together and gave a firm nod. "Yes. You're right. I'll grab a pad and …"

"Not enough time," Spencer said in a half whimper and a shrink as though ready to dodge a smack across the head. He actually raised his hand to cover his head for added drama. "The Ship's moving at too high a velocity for us to be able to accurately set the jump coordinates. It'll be through the breach in ten seconds, and we don't have any active Dimension Canons." He peered meekly at the Doctor in between the space of his ear and arm. "Rose had that project cancelled and all canons destroyed after the Reality Bomb incident. She's truly on her own up there."

Commonsense forbade him from mentioning that the _other_ Doctor was up there with her. No sense in making it worse. He was aware of the potential competition factor between brothers.

"But," Spencer managed. "On the bright side that breach is holding up."

The Doctor's face screwed up tight. "No," he growled as his fingers raked through his hair. "No. No." He began to pace. "She was supposed to jump back _before_ the ship got pulled through the breach. There's no way that the Torchwood jump pads can get her through the dimension breach. That's not in their design." He circled around as he scratched his hands in his hair. Thinking. Thinking. He stood up straight, covered his mouth with one hand, then shook his head and went back to pacing.

"She is an intelligent child, my Son," his mother urged. "I am quite positive that she will find her way home to you."

"There's always the _other_ Doctor," Pete offered. "He seems pretty good at sending her every which way but the TARDIS. He'll get her home."

"Unless he's decided he's done with sending her away," The Doctor snapped in response. "I can tell you with all honesty that if I was in his place I'd hang on tight and never let go."

"Yeah, but you're. Well. You two are together…"

"And in my messed up Time Lord head I thought we were back then, too," he moaned as he pressed the butts of both hands into his eyes and raised his head. "He'd probably still believe it. And if he gets even the slightest tickle of her new consciousness in the back of his mind…"

"Meaning what," Pete challenged gruffly.

He kept his eves covered with the heel of his hand. "Meaning she now has a true _forever _to give him, and he'll take it." He sighed. "Rassilon, I would if I were him."

"_Ohhh_, Doctor," Pete huffed dangerously. "I have a feeling that we are going to be one major kind of debrief happening when this is all over. No. Not a feeling. I will insist."

The Doctor paid no mind to Pete as he tore his hands from his eyes and launched himself across the mezzanine flooring toward Spencer's station. "Spencer. Can you possibly isolate a scanner to read the dimensional disturbance around that breach?"

Spencer rolled his chair away from the keyboard and leaned awkwardly to pull another chair into the station. "Go right ahead, Doc. Not quite sure what you're looking for, might be quicker if you take a go at it."

The Doctor didn't bother dropping down into the chair. He stood in a hunch over the keyboard as his fingers darted inhumanly fast across the keys to call up the necessary data. "I'm looking into the disturbance patterns around the breach," he instructed autonomously. "Depending on which side of the wall the breach happened, we could have a vacuum wavelength that I can hitch the jump pad off and get on board that ship." He blew out a breath. "The TARDIS can send us both back easily enough form there."

"Not completely reading you, Doc," Spencer commented quietly.

"Think of it as a decompression event in a commercial aircraft," he offered.

"Commercial aircraft," he queried. "The Zeppelin?"

The Doctor moaned even as he continued to calibrate the scanners. "Yes. That's right. Zeppelins. This planet sorely needs a Boeing Plant."

"Wha?"

The Doctor pressed his hands into the table and let his eyes flick along the data stream on the screen as the computer properly calibrated the programming. "You have a pressurized container. Blow a hole in it. What happens? Explosive decompression event. Vacuum on one side of the breach, a bloody great wind storm on the other." His fingers drummed impatiently on the console. "Same kind of idea, just with, _well_, without everything being sucked up into the atmosphere." His eyes locked on the screen. "More wavelength activity than anything." His body slumped and his head dropped at the final result.

It was the exact opposite of what he had hoped to find. She wouldn't be able to escape on her own.

"Why," he breathed on a low and disbelieving breath. "Why?"

"Oh no," Spencer muttered at the readings on a second monitor. "That wall's closing."

Pete noted a fast change in the Doctor's breathing, and the slow clench of his fists on the counter. He moved to step forward, but was held back by Mother holding her hand out in his path. She closed her eyes lightly shook her head. "Leave him."

From the corner of his eyes, Spencer noted the Time Lady's expression of warning. Silently he held his breath and rolled his chair backward away from the table. He did, however, lean forward to slide something rather expensive and breakable to within the Doctor's reach with the very tip of his finger.

Just an option.

He scrambled to a stand and scuffled back toward Pete Tyler and the Doctor's mother. His voice was a whisper as he kept his eyes on the Doctor and leaned into the pair on watch. "I'm guessing it's bad news?"

Mother nodded. "It was a long shot and he knew it. The breach was from the Prime Universe, which means that the vacuum wavelength he was looking for is from that end – not ours." Her head lowered and her gaze locked upon her son as she watched his hands lock into white-knuckled fists on the counter. Her voice lowered to a whisper of warning. "Do you know why my son is known throughout the universe as the Oncoming Storm?"

"No."

She inhaled a breath and offered them a very wide eyed look of warning. "Yes. _Well_."

The Doctor had his eyes closed, his head lilted to one side, and his hands in fists upon the table. Each slow and deep breath that he took seared at the inside of his chest. A low rumble began inside his belly and rattled up into his throat to expel from between his lips as an anguished cry of question to any and all deities listening.

"Why," he demanded as his fists gave a heavy thump on the desktop. "Why am I always destined to lose her on another side of a dimensional wall!" He slapped his palms on the table and shoved angrily at the computer keyboard, which threw papers into the air and knocked the monitors into a wobble and lean. "It's not fair!" He gave another sound that was indistinguishable between a garbled cough, a strangled sob, or a choked hiccup, and then dropped his elbows onto the table.

His mother watched in pain as her clearly distraught son leaned over the table, his head on the table, and his forearms up to embrace his head. He wasn't crying. He wasn't sobbing. He breathed in shaking and rattled breaths that continually asked _why_ and questioned the fairness of life.

"Doctor," she cooed in a gentle and motherly tone of voice. "My son, will you be alright?"

Initially, he shook his head, still clutched within the hold of his arms. After a second, however, he touched his hands to the table and pushed himself back up to a much more dignified lean against the counter. He exhaled though an open mouth.

"The wall has closed." Very matter of fact, emotionless, and to the point. "She's gone."

"Oh hell, Doctor," Pete groused out. "I'm sorry."

The Doctor bit his lips together and slowly turned to the small group at his rear. There were two very distinct tear trails down his cheeks that he did not bother to wipe at. "I want all of the information related to the dimensional canon project."

Pete shook his head. "It was all destroyed."

"Retrieve it," he growled.

"It was cancelled at yours and Rose's request, Doctor," he warned, "because of the destruction it causes to the fabric of space."

"I know."

"But Doctor."

The Doctor very calmly licked at his lip and looked to the ground a moment. When he raised his eyes they were dark and threatening. "I don't think you understand the importance of my demand," he challenged. "Rose is out there, on the other side of a parallel wall. I don't care what damage the canons cause to space, time, and the universe. I don't care because I am prepared to tear this entire universe apart to get her back."

"And Jackie will rip it apart right along with you," Pete agreed. "Okay. Spencer. Find some way to get that information."

A rather annoyed female voice humphed from the doorway. "You know. The man is a thousand year old Time Lord with at least eight hundred years of teleporting, time jumping, space travel, and controlling a TARDIS. You would _think_ by now that he would have enough experience and know how to get a girl back to _exactly_ where she wants to be, instead of two blocks away!" She paused and pressed her finger thoughtfully to her lip. "Or he did it deliberately. I wouldn't put it past him."

The vacuum that the Doctor had been looking for suddenly appeared in the Command room through the mouths of several people; several people that did not include a Time Lord wearing jeans. His reaction was to exhale her name along a whisper of disbelief.

Rose took no mind of the atmosphere, the expressions upon the faces of the people in the room, nor of the distraught and tear-streaked face of the man she loved. She didn't even see it. She merely strode toward the railing of the slightly elevated platform of which he stood and tossed a knapsack up to him with a heavy grunt of exertion.

The bag collided hard against his chest, and he spluttered a coughed exhale.

"The TARDIS packed you a bag," she began as she took a couple of steps backward. "At least I hope it was for you. It was just kind of there at my feet and so I grabbed it." She snorted. "Or maybe it's full of Amy's dirty knickers waiting for laundry day." She couldn't help but giggle at that thought.

The Doctor clutched the bag with a bear-like embrace as he watched Rose with eyes too scared to believe that she was really standing there in front of him. "Rose?"

She posed a halfway teasing imitation of the Doctor and his Sonic Screwdriver. "And look what he gave me to give to you. Your old Sonic Screwdriver." She looked down the length of her arm and pressed down on the button to activate Sonic. It was in the blue light that she finally took in his haunted and distressed look. She let her arm fall immediately away. "Doctor? What's wrong?"

He curled his hands around the railing edge of the platform barrier and hurdled himself over to leap to the other side. The fall was greater than he had anticipated, and so impact caused him to stumble awkwardly to the side. He used his hand to brace against the stumble, but was very swiftly back on his feet and in front of Rose. His eyes grazed across every inch of her face as his hand snapped out to clutch at her hip. "You came back," he managed on a husky, strangled voice.

"Of course I did," she assured him softly with a smile that trickled up into her eyes. She reached up to touch his cheek. "Where else would I go?"

The desperate look he offered. The guilty admission within his eyes gave her the answer she needed without him having to say a word. She immediately snapped her arms up and around his neck to drag him toward her.

"I promised you forever, Doctor," she vowed passionately. "I'm never leaving you. Never. Never ever." She cupped his mouth with her hand to prevent him from fracturing her vow with one of his Timey-Wimey warnings. "And I _will _say _never ever_, because I mean it."

She slid her hand from his mouth and pressed a kiss against the very corner of his mouth. Her words kissed hauntingly in his ear. "I said no to _him_ so that I could come home to you, Doctor. _You _are the one I want."

That was all that he needed to hear. With her affirmation that she'd chosen him over the _other _man, the Doctor lost his very last thread of restraint and crushed his mouth against hers in a bruising, frenzied kiss.

~~oooOOOooo~~

Rose ran her hands through her hair and them lifted them up into a high stretch as she crossed the threshold into hers and the Doctor's bedroom. She gave a tired moan inside her stretch as she toed off her socks and plotted her plan of attack toward getting her gear off and leaping into her bed. Because, she could actually contemplate sleep now that everything had been sorted out quite nicely to wrap up the evening's events.

Other than the typical yawnfest of debrief, little else was required of them. At her insistence, Mother had come home with she and the Doctor, and they'd provided her with the guest room at the end of the hall. Rose managed to find her a pair of lounge pants and slouch shirt that fit, and promised that tomorrow she and Jackie would be thrilled to take her shopping for something more to her preference.

To which the Doctor had uttered a threat of: "_If I see even one hint of a suggestion of putting a velour tracksuit on my mother, this world will be obliterated. This world, the one next to us, and the next one over."_

Rose found that as much cute as disturbing, and promised, as she set the clothing on Mother's bed that it would be the only time anything remotely tracksuitish would be on offer for the Time Lady who gave birth to him. Or Loomed him. However that went.

He didn't feel the need to clarify the intricacies of the process to her at that moment, and so she just let her mind continue to picture a giant weaving loom with a scarf-wearing Gallifreyan maid studiously weaving out little Gallifrey babies out of scraps of material.

She had to admit that she found that image pretty funny. _He_ might not have, but she certainly did. Remembering the image as she stood in the doorway to the bedroom and unclasped her bra to toss it off in some corner as penance for the crime of being so damn restrictive and uncomfortable made her chuckle. To think of the man she loved being born in that manner? Oh that made her laugh. She turned to the doorway with a laugh still in her voice.

"Seriously, Doctor. You are going to _have_ to explain it to me, because the image I have in my head would probably insult you." Her lips pursed to notice that he was already standing in the doorway to their room; in a lean against the doorframe with his arms folded loosely across his chest. Her heart leapt from her chest and into her groin when she noticed the dark and predacious look upon his face. "Oh…" She cleared her throat as he pulled from the lean and hooked his hand around the edge of the door to close it behind him. "H. He. Hello?."

He bared his teeth in a hungry smile as he soundlessly rounded upon his prey and walked her up against their closet door. He took both of her hands in his and raised them up over her head as he pressed his body against hers. His fingers threaded through hers and he clutched her hands tight as he inched ever closer against her.

Rose gulped a dry swallow and rolled her head back against the closet door. The dry swallow morphed into a shaking sigh as the Doctor's lips met with the hollow of her throat and he hungrily suckled at her skin. Her heart pulsed incessantly in her chest, then in her throat, and then in her groin, as though chasing every touch of him against her. She whimpered against his careful ministrations, desperately sighing his name with urgency for him to take her to the bed, or take her against this wall – because either option was more than good for her right now.

He chuckled a husky rattle across her collarbone, but made no other sound as he released her hands and hooked the hem of her shirt with his thumbs. He had it up and over her head inside of a single breath and claimed a breast in his mouth as he carelessly discarded the shirt with a flick of his wrist behind him.

Her whimper shot to a wanton moan at the sudden shift of his hips away from hers. Rose immediately curled her leg around his thigh to pull him back. "No," she hissed. "Don't go."

His brow flicked with thrill. He tsked only the once and then crashed his mouth against hers as he hurriedly fumbled with the belt buckle of his jeans. He knew exactly where he was headed with this and made sure that he shucked off both his jeans and underwear in one smooth motion. He lightly dipped his knees between the part of her legs and slid his hands down to her thighs. With a firm hold, he pulled her up against him again, forcing her legs around his hips.

Rose let out a sharp moan at the hard press of his length against her and locked her teeth against his shoulder as he moved them toward the bed. He dropped her heavily onto the mattress and pushed her down with one hand on her shoulder. The other hand curled fingers around the waistband of her pants to tug them off her legs.

That's where she stopped him.

Rose flicked her hand upward, palm facing outward, in a clear request for him to stop.

The Doctor's head slightly shifted down in a territorial, predacious, and questioning tilt as he loomed over her. Rose lay still, her body raw, flushed and naked under his hungry glare.

Slowly she lifted her chest up to draw herself into a kneel before him. She made sure to keep her eyes locked tight onto his so that she could see the movement of his gaze. "You're mistaken, Time Boy, if you think this game is all at _your_ control," she warned as she slid her hands up the front of his thighs, up his hips, under his shirt and up his chest. She grinned at his tremble to her touch and walked her knees further back on the bed.

She was delighted that he hadn't removed his shirt as well as his pants. She used two firm grasps of the soft, white shirt to pull him roughly toward her. At his grunt, she pulled his mouth against hers, rolled them both across the mattress to finally pin him down underneath her.

He growled out her name against her mouth as he shifted her to sit straddled over his hips, her heat firing his length to seek entrance.

Rose sensed his desperation and stretched up to loom up high above him. She pressed her hands into his chest as she rocked back gently to take him fully in one slow and long movement. Her hands curled into fists to clutch at his shirt as his hands moved to her legs to beg movement from her.

"Tell me that you love me," she demanded as she let her hands slide to his jaw.

"I love you," he promised on a dark growl as his hips rose up to her.

She still didn't rise, nor fall on him as her hands slid along his jaw and into his hair. "How much," she demanded as her hands shakingly moved to set fingers against his temple and her thumbs at his cheeks. "Enough to let me inside you?"

"Rose," he begged hotly.

"You're inside me," she moaned with a light rock of her hip to push her point. "Let me inside you."

His eyes were wide and hot, his brows tight and narrowed. He snapped his hands to hers and held them hard and flat against his face. "Come on in," he said invitingly.

Rose bit at her lip and closed her eyes as she focused on his guiding hands and the burn of his mind against hers. Her chest jumped and her breath flew out of her as she felt the fiery flash of their connection, and of the long and loud despairing moan of the Doctor.

"Open your eyes," he demanded desperately on a voice so long suffering. "Look at me, Rose."

Her eyes flashed open and she looked down at him with a gaped mouth as her body began to rise and fall on him. His hands held hard against hers as he opened himself fully to their connection and felt the storming surge of her emotions power into him with ruthless force.

There was nothing subdued or silent in his reaction to the emotion she was feeding him. He cried out, growled, moaned, and roared with every movement she made and with every thought she opened in his head. She removed every insecurity and every ounce of doubt he had in his mind of his worth to her. What she gave him was complete and utter devotion and the promise that her forever was going to be _their _forever. Past, present and every second of the future.

The Doctor shattered completely as a long vow in Ancient Gallifreyan shot through his mind and then burst through his lips.

With a gentle press of soft lips against his he passed out.


	23. Revelations

A/N: I will apologise for this chapter. It has tortured me for this entire weekend and given me no encouragement at all. I've rewritten and reworked and rewritten it all over again. I don't want to see it anymore, so here it is. But in order to move forward, certain revelations had to be made, and this was the chapter I had to do it in. Please don't judge the quality of what is to follow based on this bit. I beg of you.

I promise what is to come with make this chapter worth it.

~~oooOOOooo~~

Mother lay heavily in a reclining wooden deck chair on the upstairs deck of the Doctor and Rose's house. As she stared up at the stars above her it was obvious to see why they had chosen this house to live in. If only for the serene deck and the gateway to the stars it was worth the purchase price. She imagined that Rose and her son must spend hours sitting together outside looking up into the sky. She would do so at every possible moment between now and when her final day was upon her.

With a tear in her eye, she pressed her lips to the centre of her right palm and blew along the length of her hand into the sky above. "Receive this, my beloved," she whispered sadly. "I will forever mourn our parting, but celebrate our time as one for all of eternity."

"That's beautiful, and so sad," Rose cooed softly from the sliding glass door to the deck. She carried a tray filled with an insulated teapot, mugs, milk and sugar, and used her rump to slide close the door behind her. "I thought you might like some tea."

Mother rose quickly from her seat to assist Rose in setting the tray on a small table between two deck chairs. "I have never tried tea," she admitted curiously. "Coffee, I have tried. It was particularly awful."

"I say that you're either one or the other," Rose said with cheer as she set about fixing two mugs of tea. "The Doctor, he likes tea. He's very specific, though, on how it's made."

"Meaning, he likes you to make it for him?"

Rose handed across a steaming cup of tea. "Yes."

Mother laughed as she inhaled the aroma of fresh tea. "That is because he is too lazy to make it for himself," she offered.

"I don't mind," she said with a sigh as she settled back into the lawnchair beside mother with her own mug of tea cupped protectively in her hands. "He always hangs around and bugs me while it's steeping, and it means we chat. I consider it good bonding time between him and me."

Mother stretched a very cheeky smile across her cheeks. "Yes. _Bonding_. Is this something that the two of you engage in often?"

"As in making tea?"

Mother merely slid a tired look toward her.

"Oh!" Rose snorted an embarrassed breath so sharply that she was positive she inhaled tea up her nose. She spluttered slightly and wiped at a pair of droplets on her chest. "Oh. Um. Yes. Uh. No!" She looked everywhere except at Mother. "Maybe that's a better question to ask _him._ Preferably when I'm a long, long way away from the both of you._"_

Mother laughed. "Oh don't be so shy about it, my daughter." She looked across to her. "If I may call you such, of course."

"Um. Yeah. Sure."

Mother looked back to the sky. "I remember the days when his father and I came together with such intense and unbridled passion."

Rose bit at the rim of her mug in slight discomfort. There was no way on this earth in this parallel in this regeneration that she was going to talk about _bonding_ with the Doctor _with his_ _mother_! Never ever, and not for a second.

"It is clear that my husband passed along his very passionate and adoring spirit to our son."

Rose squeaked, and then smiled. There was an opening to change the course of this discussion. "Um. Yes. His – I mean the Doctor's – father." She cleared her throat to drop back to her usual octave. "Where is he?" She took a sip from her mug and smiled curiously. "_Who_ is he?"

"My beloved husband, is a great Time Lord by the name of Ulysses," Mother answered sadly. "Centuries ago, he was found guilty of consorting with Aliens, and was brought to task by the Council of the Time Lords. He was consequently incarcerated in a containment facility upon Gallifrey." She closed her eyes and took a breath. "Ulysses was a man who traveled all of time and space, having adventures and reaching such heights that even my Son could not reach." Her eyes opened and she dropped her head sadly. "And he was condemned to spend his remaining regenerations in a small cell with a view upon Mount Lung and the Cadonflood River. He is to forever look upon his home, but can never return to it."

"That's so sad," Rose whispered softly. She put her hand over Mother's. "Were you able to visit him?"

She shook her head. "Impossible. His name and all records his very existence were removed by the Time Lord Council." She looked into the stars. "Such a strong and adventurous soul, now just a nameless face amongst prisoners."

"For swanning about with Aliens," Rose asked with mild incredulity. "But the Doctor does that every single day of his life."

"And he was taken to task for that," Mother said with a stern, yet, amused tone of voice. "Not that my son is one to accept being told what to do." She laughed lightly. "Since he was a child. So stubborn."

"Yeah, well nothing's changed. He can still be a stubborn little brat. He just happens to be in a really good looking man's body."

She laughed. "One thing to know about the men of Time, child. They never grow up."

"Neither do Earth guys," Rose practically cheered. "Obviously men are men no matter which planet they're from."

"Oh, but how we love them, Rose." Mother sighed longingly. "For all of the frustration and anger Ulysses could cause me, I would not change him for all of the universe." She took Rose's hand in hers and petted it gently. "The Doctor will drive you senseless. There will be days where he will anger you. He will frustrate and upset you. Just remember that none of it is intentional. He loves you, and it will pain him if he thinks that he's upset you."

Rose licked coyly at her lip. "In other words if – sorry – _when_ he gets me all flustered I should milk it for all its worth?"

Mother let out a laugh of sheer pride. "Oh yes, my daughter. I approve of that strategy."

Silence fell upon the two ladies for a moment as both looked toward the stars; their minds on two different Time Lords. Surprisingly, however, each woman's mind was not on the face of their beloveds, but on the men who held the heart of the other. Mother considered her son, and of the wonderful life he had yet to live, and Rose considered Ulysses, and of the condemnation brought upon him by the power of the Lords of Gallifrey.

Rose slouched deeper in the chair and held her mug against the valley between her breasts. "May I ask you a question?"

"Of course, Child."

She rolled her head to regard the other woman with a gentle and curious look. "I keep hearing, from you, and from the TARDIS, that I am being called by Time. By your words, I assume that means Gallifrey."

Mother nodded. "That's correct."

Rose shifted her body slightly toward Mother. "But how? Gallifrey is gone."

Mother licked at her lip as she considered the question carefully. She took a moment to sip at her tea and then set it on the table in between their chairs. "Time, and its pathways are very complicated. You are only beginning to learn your new consciousness, and so as you move forward, and with the Doctor's gentle guidance, those intricacies will become more clear to you."

"I do want to ask you, at a later moment, about this _new consciousness_ you, I suppose, gave me back on the ship."

"And that discussion is best held until the Doctor is with you, Rose," she warned softly. "I am sure that he has many questions, himself."

"As long as he isn't going to reject me," Rose groused softly. "He fell in love with a human girl, not a Time Lord, or lady."

"Mistress," Mother countered with a smile. "Until you and my son are fully bonded in marriage, you are referred to as a Time Mistress."

"Oh it sounds so scandalous," Rose joked. "I'm his _mistress_."

"Don't fear rejection," she continued. "The vow and plea he cried out to the Council of the Lords this evening as you came together tells me that he will hold you to him with fierce passion no matter your form or consciousness."

Rose cleared her throat uncomfortably. Her voice was a meek whisper of a question. "Plea?"

"If I am to try to translate it into your language," she started with a frown of concentration. "Loosely, it was a plea for them to grant him their permission to loom your timelines into one." She shifted in her seat to pick up her cup of tea again. "The vow is very specific, and there is no specific translation into your human tongue. It's not said lightly."

"Why not?" she queried with a frown. "Marriage seems pretty par for the course as much on Gallifrey as here on Earth."

"Marriage and the coming together of timelines are two vastly different things. Marriage between a Gallfreyan couple are fairly similar to what you have here on Earth. A ceremony, a coupling, the looming of children." She pursed her lips a moment before continuing. "In the houses of the Lords, it is different."

"The Doctor has told me that most marriages are political."

"Loveless, mostly," Mother confirmed. "The houses of the Lords need to maintain the arranged marriages between Chapters to hold the factions together. Oh, in time devotion between couples does sometimes occur. It's uncommon, but not unheard of. Ulysses belonged to the house of Lungbarrow."

"And you," she queried. "Where were you born?"

"My origin," she warned quietly. "Is as much a secret as my Son's name."

"So not of Gallifrey, then." Rose nodded knowingly. "It seems that it's a trait amongst your people, secrets," she said inside a clearing of her throat as she suddenly set about making a third cup of tea from the pot to her right. "I respect your privacy. I'm sorry that I asked."

"Never be apologetic for asking a question,' Mother said quickly. "If one doesn't ask, then one doesn't learn."

Rose looked up from her task. "Can I use that the next time I ask the Doctor a question he doesn't want to answer?"

"If he doesn't wish to answer the question, child, then there stands a reason."

Rose held the fresh mug of tea up high over her shoulder and kept her eyes on Mother. "Yeah. I get it." She waited a moment with her eyes held high to the stars.

"What are you doing, child?"

"Oh, nothing," she said with a wide grin. "So. Back to this whole Gallifrey business."

"We should, perhaps, wait for the Doctor." Her brows shot high to see the man in question lumber sleepily through the sliding glass door.

He wore only a thin pair of pyjama pants and a white crinkled undershirt over his chest, his hair was flat over his eyes, and he walked like a man drunk, but Rose still gave him an appreciative whistle as he took the mug from her and tipped it in thanks. "You are an amazing woman, Rose Tyler. Don't let them tell you otherwise."

"I don't typically let them."

The Doctor hooked his foot around the leg of a patio chair and limped as he dragged it woith his foot over to sit with the ladies. "General chinwag?" he asked. "Or are we discussing the very fabric of nature?"

"Don't you be so lazy, young Lord," Mother hissed in annoyance. "Pick up that chair and carry it."

The Doctor looked at his mother, at Rose, and then at the current location of the chair – which was about a single inch away from his intended destination. With a challenging look of a petulant child, he put his hand on the back of it, lifted it an inch off the ground, and placed it in exactly the place he wanted it –slightly less than an inch from where it had been dragged. "There," he muttered as he flopped down in it with enough flop to actually scrape it that entire almost inch backward.

"Are you sure this is the man with which you wish to spend your entire set of regenerations with, my daughter?" Mother chipped with a glare toward her son.

"That puts in place a question you need to answer," The Doctor interrupted around a mouthful of tea. "How _did _my beautiful _Human_ Rose become a Time Lady?"

"_Mistress_, Doctor," Rose quickly corrected with a smile along the rim of her mug. She waggled a brow. "According to your mother, I'm not a Lady, just yet."

"Oh, I don't know," he breathed across the top of his mug with a wink in his eye. "You're more Lady than half the women of Time I've met."

"Present company excluded I would hope." Mother shifted herself upward to take herself out of the lean she had on her chair. A quick adjustment on the back, and she was seated in quite a good position to properly address her Son. "Rose has been a Mistress of Time since the moment she looked into the heart of your TARDIS and took into her the Time Vortex."

The Doctor leaned forward to rest his elbows on his knees. "At the Gamestation," he confirmed. He then frowned. "No. There's no possible way that you could know about that. Gallifrey was long gone by then." He rubbed at his brow. "Long gone."

"Son," Mother said flatly. "Need I remind you of who we are?"

"Yeah, Doctor. Wibbly Wobbly Timey Wimey," Rose offered. She gave a shrug at his sharp look. "Hey. You're all Time Travellers. Backward, forward, left, right, ooh, I stepped on a bug, I'd better go back and change that…"

"I'm not quite sure how to take you making so light of this, Rose," he muttered.

"It is what it is," she sighed defeatedly. "Being with you, I've learned to just roll with it. If I continually tried to analyze everything that happened, and tried to keep it straight, I'd go certifiably insane."

"Again, not sure how to take that."

"I love you."

"Don't change the subject."

She sipped at her tea. "Are you upset that I can live long and regenerate?"

"Of course I'm not," he said quickly. "It's brilliant. It really is."

"Then just run with it. I am."

He looked to his mother. "But, there's more to it, isn't there?" his eyes remained on his mother. "Rose, not all Gallifreyan children become regenerating semi-immortal beings." He finally looked toward her. "That's a privilege granted to those selected by the Time Lords."

"Indeed," Mother continued. "When still loomlings, the children from the houses of the Lords are initiated as potential Lords of Time and are placed in front of the gateway to the Vortex. They are made to look into the heart of Time itself and from there their paths are in place."

"At that moment they are granted the power of regeneration from the Lords."

"Oh," Rose breathed through perfectly pouted lips. "You aren't born with it." She chuckled. "So did the Lords know exactly what they were doing when they gave you that power, Doctor?"

"Indeed no," he said with a single-sided smile and a wink toward her. He then turned his attention back to his mother. "So therein lies the question burning a hole in my mind. Even after Rose looked into the vortex, the ability of regeneration wasn't an automatic right. That's something that has to be given to her by the Lords. And, _well_, there really aren't any swanning around here., and I certainly don't have the power to hand out regeneration packages, neither does a half ready TARDIS machine."

"Do you remember your father speaking this to you?" His Mother looked at him with an unreadable gaze. "_And so it shall come to pass that the War to end Time will be waged. A Lord of war will have possession of a single moment, a conscience and a sublime being of golden light. It will be physicians three guided by_…"

"_The wolf and the storm_," the Doctor continued with wide eyes. "_The Howl and Thunder will open the eyes and mind, and thirteen will be the savior. The Fire of Time will burn no more_."

"Well that's interesting," Rose remarked softly. "What's that; a prophecy?"

The Doctor shook his head. "It's from the Book of Rassilon." He frowned. "Stories. Just stories. My father used to tell me those tales when I was a kid." He rose up from the chair and moved to sit on the end of the seat that Rose lay. He pulled her legs across his thighs and resumed his slouch of his elbows on his knees. "So you're telling me that this story is not so much fiction, as it is a prophetic text?"

"Such as Rassilon believes," Mother offered.

The Doctor shook his head. "No. Rassilon's mistaken. There was no saving Gallifrey that day. I vividly remember making that decision. I see those flames burn every time I close my eyes." He stood up sharply, with enough of a shift in his calves to knock the chair and have Rose yelp as she was thrown off balance by his legs knocking against hers. "Gallifrey burned at my hand. I watched it happen. I _made _it happen." He began to pace. "I had no _moments_ or a _being of golden light_ to guide me. I was the Doctor of War, and I had no guidance." He winced in painful remembrance. "I barely even knew how to get that damn bomb to work."

"But Son."

"There are no _buts_, he growled. "I was there. I watched it happen – I _made_ it happen. That event can't change. It's time locked, a fixed point in time."

"All points can be changed," Mother dared him as she rose quickly from the chair. "Rassilon says he's seen the survival of Gallifrey and its children." She set her hands on his shoulders. "The story has been told for a thousand years. We need to believe it, Son. It's the only hope we have for survival."

"You can't put the pressure of the survival of a world on her," he growled. "She's human. Born on Earth, not loomed at Lungbarrow."

"And just what does that statement imply; that she is inferior for the task?"

"Don't put words in my mouth, Mother."

Rose shifted with great unease in the chair. "I think it's time for me to leave." She thumbed toward the door. "I have to clear up the, uh. Kitchen! Yes, the kitchen needs cleaning. Making tea is a very messy business."

"No," the Doctor answered suddenly, sensing the distress in her tone. "Rose, please stay." He moved toward her and took a seat on the edge of the chair. He rubbed lightly at her knee. "I want you to stay."

"No," Rose said softly as she slid off the chair and slowly drew herself to a stand. "I think the two of you need some time alone to work a few things out." She kissed his mouth tenderly, and ran her thumb along his lip when she pulled back from him. "You'd better start with just what you intend to do about helping your parents reunite." She looked around him toward Mother. "We can start with the two of you working out how to get this Rassilon guy to change his mind on exiles and incarcerations. I suggest warning him that if he wants me and you to go about saving his planet, I have a couple of demands to make first."

The Doctor looked perplexed for a moment. His fingers wrapped around Rose's hand to hold her with him as he turned his gaze toward his mother. "What's Rose talking about?"

"We have more important items to discuss right now," she answered evasively.

"Actually," Rose offered. "Gallifrey can wait." She received two separate kinds of stares; one a perplexed, yet supportive look, and the other a stare of frustration. She dropped her hand from the Doctor's to step toward Mother. "I spent more than two years on the other side of a dimensional wall from the Doctor. It almost killed me. I missed him and cried for him every day."

"Oh, Rose," he breathed sorrowfully.

Rose kept her attention toward Mother. "But I can't even begin to imagine how completely soul shattering it must be for you to be forced into exile away from your husband – the father of your children – separated by Time, by a dimensional wall, and by Prison bars."

"What?" The Doctor spluttered. "What?"

"So I'm going to say this,' Rose continued. "You get a message to Rassilon, and you tell him that unless he releases Ulysses from prison and allows you to return to your parallel, then I'm not doing squat to help _him_ out. He can find another _wolf_ to help him out."

"Rassilon doesn't take well to threats, Child,' Mother warned.

"Yeah? Well neither do I." She leaned in close and threatening. "Remind him that I was able to do the one thing he couldn't – I wiped out an entire Dalek fleet with only a wave of my hand – I've still got what it takes to _wave_ a little in his direction, too."

"Is what Rose says true, Mother," the Doctor asked sharply with a fast approach. "Were you sent here in exile by Rassilon?"

Mother dropped her head. "Yes, my son," she admitted. "I was sent here in exile, and to give your beloved my birthright to Lungbarrow as punishment for helping your brother when the Master returned."

"The Master returned?" The Doctor sounded mortified. "That's impossible. He was dead. I watched his body burn."

"Who's the Master," Rose asked curiously.

"An evil man," Mother growled as she stepped two strides closer to the Doctor. "You are best not knowing who he is, child."

"What did he do," the Doctor asked on a low breath. "And how can you helping out my brother put you in exile from Rassilon?"

"Allow me to show you," she answered as she applied a connective touch to her son's face. "You won't like what you see, Doctor. I'm sorry."

Rose watched in horror the expressions that overtook the Doctor's face as he watched the horrific events of the last days of the tenth Doctor's regeneration. Her hand flew to cover her mouth when the Doctor finally pulled his mother's hands from his face and staggered backward like a man in agony. He held at his gut, hunched over his arms and looked at his mother with a horrified and tear-filled gaze.

"That's a death sentence," he croaked. "He can't order that."

"I committed treason," she argued. "The Council are fully within their rights to put me to death."

He shook his head. "Not like this," he snarled. "This is a slow and horribly cruel manner of death that'll take two lives, not just yours." He held his palm to his forehead. "Why would you go against him, Mother? He is the most powerful person in Kasterborous."

"I did it to save my son," she snarled. "And I would do it again for him, for you. Your father would do the same. He would support what I've done."

The Doctor lunged forward and snatched his mother into a desperate and protective embrace. "I won't allow this," he vowed passionately. "I promise you – _promise_ – that we'll make this right."

"I know, Son," she whispered into his ear. "I know."


	24. Mauve Alert

A/N: I love you guys! I write what I think is rubbish, and you give me great reviews! That's just brilliant. Thanks!

My note for moving forward from here: Okay. Hold on tight. Here we go! _Allons-y_

~~oooOOOooo~~

One thing that Rose knew would always remain consistent with her and the Doctor, no matter what the situation, where they were, or how insane things got, his hand would always find hers. The hold may vary; his fingers threaded through hers, or simply cupped and wrapped around her hand; but it would always be there. The Doctor's hand hold was so guaranteed, and so often there, that Rose could tell his mood the second that his hand found hers.

Today it was a loose cup of his fingers around hers. His Right, her left. His wrist crossed in front of hers, and his thumb so loosely hung that it barely grazed her knuckles.

He was out of sorts. Distracted. Worried. Slightly frustrated in himself.

Rose tightened her hold on his hand and stepped in closer to him. She stroked at his arm and pressed her lips against his shoulder as she looked pleadingly up to his face. "Anything I can help you with?"

His hand tightened slightly around hers and he dropped his gaze to her to offer her a gentle smile. "Reading my mind, Rose Tyler?"

She jerked just slightly at that. "That's not something that we're gonna be able to do, is it?"

He gave her a laugh. "No."

She let out a breath of relief. "Thank God for that."

"Oh," he huffed in amusement. "Now I _want_ to know." He released her hand and stuffed his hands in his trouser pockets as he walked backward ahead of her, a teasing glint in his eye, and a slight forward stoop. "So what is it that fills the mind of the brilliant Rose Tyler? Is it mischief and mayhem, song and dance?" He leaned forward with a light purse in his lips. "Love and romance?"

She snatched his lapels and walked forward on her toes as he walked backward in his stoop, and touched the tip of her nose against his. "My thoughts, scandalous or innocent, are mine to know."

"And obviously now mine to determine," he slipped his hand back into hers and spun on the ball of his foot to walk at her side once more. "Let me see. Monday morning. Debrief from the accidental appearance of the Theonope group mostly complete, but reports need to be typed up." He looked down his shoulder at her, and at the roll in her eyes. "Nope," a pop in his P. His thumb stroked at her hand. "How about plans for lunch today? I know we've been trying to get an hour at the same time together for the last two weeks and it hasn't happened."

"Give up," she moaned. "You're not even half way close."

"Probably because we are in a public forum and any other suggestion I have in my mind would be wholly inappropriate."

"And you say that with a straight face," she murmured with a slight reddish tint to her cheek.

He dipped down closer to her ear. "Was the last one right?"

"No!"

He shrugged with a toothy grin and lightly swung their joined hands. "Then whatever delicious thoughts are swirling through your beautiful mind will remain your secret, my dear Rose."

She tugged his hand to draw them to a stop and turned to face him. "Something is on my mind, Doctor."

"That doesn't sound good," he ventured. "Is everything okay?"

She shook her head. "I want to ask the same about you."

"Oh."

She caught him ready to look away and guided his face back to hers. "You haven't spoken about Friday night at all, Doctor." She chased his eyes with her face to keep in his sight. "I know that you're worried about your mum and dad, and I want to help you to help them, but I can't if you're going to clam up and not talk to me."

He tugged at his ear. "I'm still trying to wrap my head around it, Rose. Still trying to come up with some form of plan to be able to bridge an interdimensional gap, get across to a planet that doesn't even exist anymore – because I ignited it – and find where my father is to try and get him freed." He took a breath. "Then I have the added bonus point of just how you and I could possibly have become embroiled in a children's story that means we're saving a planet that, again, doesn't exist anymore."

She gave an innocent tilt to her head and licked at her lip. "If the TARDIS was ready, could we use her to solve a few of those problems? Especially the interdimensional, timey wimey trip back to Gallifrey before it went Woosh?" She made a hand motion to indicate fire.

The Doctor winced slightly in annoyance, but held it down knowing it was an unintentional stab. "If I knew how to be able to cross the dimensional barrier without collapsing the universes, using just the TARDIS don't you think I would have done so when we were separated?" He took her other hand in his. "Rose. I burned up a sun just to be able to get a message to you across the wall; so I could say good bye to you."

"But since then, Doctor," she tried with an urging smile. "Since then, we've managed to find ways."

"All of which caused some very impressively destructive events." He tugged her in for a hug. "There's no way to do it safely, Rose. I wish there was."

Rose set her chin on his shoulder. "What if there were TARDIS machines on either side of the wall. Could they combine their energies to create a stable portal that would allow safe passage through a wall?"

The Doctor snapped her away from him and shot a frown of thought into her face. "Rose?"

"You had mentioned some time ago that when the Time Lords were active, that inter dimensional travel was possible. Is that because of the multiple TARDIS machines in flight at any time, and so connecting between machines could make it possible?" She hooked her hair behind her ear. "Once we get our girl up and running, we could try, right?"

He simply stared at her with complete awe. "You are amazing," he breathed as he cupped her face in his hands. "In case I haven't said it today, I love you."

"You have," she said with a grin as she pressed a chaste kiss to his mouth. "But you can keep telling me that. I won't tire of it any time soon."

"I certainly hope not," he chirped as he stepped back to her side and resumed their walk. "But. I do know how to say it or a variant of it in five billion languages, so I can mix it up."

"Can I ask a question?"

"I'll try to answer."

She licked at her lip a little. "Aside from the obvious heartbreak and agony of separation." She watched his face lengthen as though ready to face that tough question. "How does your mum being here mean that she's being condemned to death?"

His grip tightened incredibly on her hand, and again, he pulled her to a stop. "My parents are among the few married Lords who found their true mate. Before my brother – not my Doctor brother, but my other one – and I were loomed, my father got approval from the council to allow them to enter into a bonding commitment ceremony."

"Your mum mentioned that," she offered with a smile. "She said that their time lines are loomed into one."

"Yeah, that's it," he said with a tic of his head and an upward lift to his eyes. "It's a permanent telepathic connection." He lifted one side of his mouth in a smile. "And when I say permanent, I'm being quite literal."

"Kind of like you with the TARDIS?" she tried.

He nodded. "A telepathic connection needs constant nurturing. It's a constant sentient state that longs and searches for that connection. A transdimensional barrier will block their senses from each other, and they'll break down."

"Please assure me that by breaking down, you mean just crying desperately for each other."

He pressed his lips tight together and shook his head.

"Blimey, Doctor," she breathed against her hand. "So they're going to…"

"They'll die without each other."

"We have to help them." She said with a voice holding tears. "There has to be a way for us to help them."

"I'm working on it," he assured. "I've been running potential plans through my head since Friday."

"The TARDIS can help, yeah?"

"Not in her current state, Rose." He looked at his watch, and swiftly turned to tug her back into a swift walk to the office. "We'd better get a move on. I've got a meeting with," he groaned and slumped though in pain. "I have a _meeting_."

"We're going to save them, Doctor," she promised. "I swear to you that we'll help mum and dad. We'll reactivate the dimension canon project, and we'll find a way to get to the Doctor and have him take your mum home."

"I know we will," he said with a fake smile.

"We always do, right? Rose and the Doctor, stuff of legend, saviours of the universe."

"Quite right, we will," he said, his smile becoming tentative, but honest. "Now my question to you."

Rose tilted her head upward, curious. "Sure. Ask away."

"Knowing what you do about this form of marriage." He looked down at her. "Would you still consent?"

She nervously tucked her hair behind her ear. "Would you?"

"I wouldn't have asked if I didn't." He snapped her flush against him and walked them through the revolving door of the Torchwood office, both in the same small section of the door, giggling childishly in her ear as they entered the main lobby. "So? How about it? Are you willing to take a jaded 900 year old Time Lord as your life partner? To have and to hold in this regeneration, and all other regenerations to come?"

Rose's smile spread from one ear to the next as she leapt at him and hooked her arms around his neck. "Without a second thought," she promised. As she pulled back from him and lets his hand fins hers once more, she leaned into him with a tongue in teeth smile. "900 years old? Really?"

~~oooOOOooo~~

Rose had a bounce in her step as she skipped past Spencer into their work lab. She hummed a pop tune as she leapt into her chair and kicked the floor to roll it to in front of her computer.

Spencer looked up over his monitor with a cheeky smile. "You're in a good mood for a Monday," he called across the room. "Doc treat you right this morning?"

"I hope you're not implying what I think you're implying," she sang as she scrolled through her emails. "And. You know that he hates being called _Doc_, right?"

"Which is precisely why we all call him that," he chuckled. "What's a nickname if the person who has it actually likes the name?"

"Yeah," she sighed. "That's very true." She leaned back into her chair and swiveled left to right and left again. "Are we booked heavy today?"

"You and Doc are set for a meeting with the Strategic heads to discuss your thoughts on the new Quantum Force Defense Weapon project at eleven."

"Send them a memo from the both of us with a gigantic _Hell no you stupid bunch of gits_ on it, and then take it off my calendar."

"Yeah, can't do that. I tried, remember, when the request first came through." He leaned back in his chair in an identical pose to her and cradled his fingers across his belly. "At risk of blowing your good mood, Boss Lady – and I am going to beg of you that you don't shoot me and I'll still have a job after telling you this – but I think you and Doc may be about to find yourselves in a gigantic pile of shit."

Her side to side swivel on her chair ceased rather abruptly. "What?"

"Your Dad's had me running some securities on yours and Doc's systems."

"Why?"

"He's has some suspicions since the Sontarans had their little party in our sky." He quickly held up his hands. "Not against the two of you – I promise – but because some of the questions he has seem to centre between you and Doc, he wanted me to do some digging and try to protect your data."

She swallowed. "And what have you found?" Her eyes shifted warily to her monitor as she considered the files containing the TARDIS information.

"Nothing about project TARDIS," he assured. "I've got it protected so tightly that even if they could access the files, they wouldn't understand a word of it."

She looked impressed. "How did you do that?"

"Wish I could take cred," he admitted with a shrug. "Doc got in there shortly after he found your little secret and recoded all of the files. Says that they'd be impossible to translate if they were ever accessed."

"Okay. So my baby is safe," she looked at the vault door. "For now."

"Nah, not for too much longer," he said flatly. "Intercepted a memo to the Torchwood heads from Marcus. Rose, he's put in an injunction in demanding to know what you're doing behind vault doors."

"He can't," she breathed on a worried voice.

"He can," Spencer corrected apologetically. "He's charging that your project is a danger to Mother England, and that it's somehow inviting other aliens to come visit or some shit." He stood up and put his hands in his labcoat pockets as he strode toward her. "He's either going to shut it down and have it destroyed, or he's going to have his team take what you have and will exploit it from there." He scratched at his neck as he looked to the door. "Moving that monster isn't going to be an option, so we're looking at destruction I reckon."

"It's not his property to make that decision," she snapped. "That TARDIS is the property of the Time Lords of Gallifrey. That right of ownership is protected by the Shadow Proclamation, and, ugh," she groaned as she pressed her hands into her eyes in frustration. "I'm not going to get used to knowing this stuff."

"I've set up a calendar block on yours, Pete's and Doc's schedules at ten a.m., so you can come up with a game plan for this. I've rounded up as much information as I can for you." He looked very apologetic. "But it doesn't look good, Rose. Marcus is gunning for the Doc, and he's not going to stop playing these Ass Clown games until he gets him."

"But why? I don't get it."

"Ahh," Spencer breathed in annoyance. "Bastard's probably a damn alien himself, from a species that the Doc kicked ass on. It'd make sense. That level of douchebaggery is either Alien, or Australian."

"I'd go with alien," She suggested. "Aussies tend to be very upfront about their asshattery."

"Yeah," he agreed. "True that is."

Rose pushed herself out of her chair and wiped her now sweating hands on the thighs of her jeans. "The Doctor's meeting finishes at nine-thirty. Can you let him know to come straight here when he's done. Just tell him we have a mauve alert situation, and he'll bolt down here in a jiffy."

"Not red?"

She chuckled as she tapped in her access codes to the vault. "Apparently the Universal colour is mauve – don't ask me, ask him about it some time." She stepped into the room and blew a kiss toward the beautiful coral structure winding around the room.

"Hello sweetheart," she cooed. "Looks like we have a problem. How do you feel about stepping up the schedule?"


	25. Ain't No Party Like a Time Lord Party

A/N: You know what sucks? When that one thing, that scene, that one bit you want to write, _really_ want to write, you end up not being able to write because getting to that point would basically require an act so OOC that you may as well just assassinate the characters. So how in the bloody hell do I get to where I want to go? How?! DAMNIT!

So that said, I literally had to make this up as I went along and then add some players that I really didn't want to add. Sorry. But, oh well, hopefully plan B will get me to the starting line well enough. I think I'm good from here.

~~oooOOOooo~~

It took a moment for the TARDIS to come to life, and for the hologram of the interface to appear at the main console. The image of Nine looked troubled.

"Good morning, Rose."

"It's morning, but I wouldn't class it as being particularly _good._"

Nine's brow tightened as he moved toward her. His head had the telltale tilt of question and concern. "Why do you feel different to me, Rose? Why can I sense Time Lord inside you?"

On any other moment, Rose would have had a couple of very witty answers for that question. Time being of the essence, however, she made do with immediate truth. "Apparently the Grand Master felt it was necessary to give me full Time Lord consciousness and regenerative powers." She pressed her hand onto the top of the console. "The Doctor's Mum is here, and apparently she was tasked by Rassilon to give me to _deluxe package_."

"Oh," he answered with a crease in his brow. "And the Doctor, does he know?"

"Yes. Both of them do, actually."

"And?"

"Thrilled," she stated flatly. "But we have much bigger problems, several of them in fact, and we can't waste time with explanations right now."

He folded his arms across his chest, tight, and leaned slightly backward as though to give himself more height. "Right-oh, then. What's this about stepping up the schedule?"

"What's the probability of getting you fully active in, say, oh, the next little while?"

"If the next little while is about three months or so, then we're in good standing."

"By tonight?"

He shook his head. "Impossible."

"Nothing is impossible," she said with tightly pursed lips. She drummed her fingers on the counter. "I've defied impossible more than once." She wandered around the console and licked at her lip as she pulled the keyboard toward her and started running calculations. "You've grown enough that we can move toward the Block Transfer process."

"No. I'm not…"

"Are you telling me that your computer is glitching, TARDIS? Because this says you're good to go."

His jaw shifted. "But _you're_ not ready. The Doctor and I haven't yet completed our calculations to make this work and keep you safe." He saw her fierce determination and shook his head with urgency. "Bring in the Doctor, we will discuss this. We go no further unless he is here."

She opened her mouth to speak.

"I'm not letting you even attempt to try anything without him being here." He pointed sharply in her direction. "And you should know better just how he'll react if you go ahead and try. The fact you're even considering it will get you a decent glare."

She slouched backward and nodded in agreement. "You're right," she acquiesced gently. "I can't do this without him." She tapped at her teeth. "How about trying to get a message across time and space? You and I can do this, yeah?"

"Oh, you're going to push this, aren't you?"

She held her finger and thumb a mere millimeter apart. "Just a little teenie tiny bit." She slumped at his look of _no._ "Just one little hypercube, that's all."

He raised a finger. "One. That's it." He moved to stand beside her at the console. "Who are you trying to reach, the other Doctor?"

Her lips pursed. "No."

"Who," he muttered with a warning tone. "There aren't any other Time Lords who can intercept the cube."

"I need you to throw it back a few years."

"You say that as though it is such an easy thing to do."

She grinned a toothy smile, and stroked the console in a loving manner. "I have such faith in my beautiful baby girl. If anyone can do it, you can."

"Yeah," he chuckled with a shake of his head. "And there are times, you know, that all the flattery in the universe will still earn you a negative response." He winked. "But I can try. Who are we looking for then?"

"Rassilon."

"Absolutely not!"

Her mouth gaped. "Well that was an awfully quick shut down."

"You don't want to go messing about with him, Rose," he warned darkly. "I won't facilitate any form of communication between you and _that_ Time Lord. He's too dangerous. Not even the Doctor can protect you from him."

"Yeah, well like it or not, I think we're going to need him." She rubbed at her brow and winced. "I've got a very unsettling feeling, and I don't know that the Doctor's going to be able to get me through this without help."

"Believe in him."

"I do."

There was a strangled yelp from the doorway. Both the interface image of Nine and Rose twisted their bodies and glares toward the sound. Rose's jaw dropped more in annoyance than shock to see Marcus' right hand soldierman standing in the doorway, swinging a half-sized nightstick around his finger.

"Oh, you have to be kidding me," she snarled under her breath. She strode a step forward to address him. "This is a restricted area, Jackson. I'm going to have to ask you to leave."

"Not going anywhere," he slid back with a laugh. He made a point of looking around. "Wow. This is something else, isn't it? I was told that you might be working on something good in here, but I never thought for an instant it would be _this_ good."

"This is none of your business, now please leave." She leaned around him. "Spencer! Call security and have this man removed from my Lab."

Jackson leaned down with a sneer. "Yeah. He's slightly indisposed right now."

She backed up quickly to the console. "What did you to do him?"

"Nothing," he said with a shrug. "He tripped and fell. Banged that nerd head of his. Not much I could do."

Rose immediately sprung into a run to check on her assistant, but was caught by the collar of her shirt. She yelped as she was pulled with her back into the chest of the Soldier and held firm on place by his arm across her neck.

"Oh, you're making such a monumental mistake," she growled as she lightly gave a struggle against his hold.

"Why, because your Doctor will get mad?" He laughed. "But he's not here, right now, is he? He's tied up in a meeting, Rose. One of those ones that he can't get out of." He ran the night stick down her cheek. "Just so we're clear, I'm not scared of him," he purred darkly into her ear. "I don't fear the Time Lord."

She remained in place and shared a look with the TARDIS interface image. "Oh, but maybe you should give some thought to the danger posed by a Time Lady," she grunted as she threw head backward to crash hard against his nose. As he stumbled backward, she held both her hands together, and spun to smash him across the jaw.

She jogged a couple of steps away, and toward the console. She shook her hands violently as she whimpered. "Oh God, that hurt so much more than I was expecting it to."

Jackson spat bloodstained saliva at the ground. "Feisty, aren't you?"

Rose was rightly confused. "What are you doing," she snarled. "Why are you behaving like a comic book bag guy going after the hero? What's your purpose of coming in here and behaving like a dickhead?"

"Because this thing you're working on, it's alien tech and we want it."

"Who is we?"

The Assistant Director strode into the vault and set his hands on his hips. "_We_, would include _me."_

"Oh-Kay," she breathed. "And just who are you, _exactly_? Because I'm just going to hazard a guess and say that you're not who we think you are."

"Quite right," he said with a smile. "I'm an old acquaintance of your Doctor."

She staggered back up against the console. "Oh for the love of God, please tell me that you're not the Master?"

Marcus raised his head and laughed. "Oh, why no." He dropped his head to look back down. "But he was my pupil." He moved to within only a foot of her. "As was your Doctor."

"You can't be Time Lord," she challenged. "He would have known. The Doctor would have felt your presence. You've worked together for twelve months now, he would have known."

"Well, that's the thing with regenerations," he countered. "You can hide if you need to." He leaned down to her. "Especially when you're pretending to be dead."

"This is the part where I say _oh shit_, and cry out for the Doctor to help me, isn't it?"

Marcus laughed. "The fearless Rose Tyler, Bad Wolf, the child who inhaled the whole of the Time Vortex and wiped out an entire Dalek Fleet with the wave of her hand, reducing herself to calling to her Doctor for help?" He tsked loudly. "I am very disappointed in you."

"Well," she ventured with only a small shake in her voice. "It's such a good thing my goal in life isn't to impress a creepy Time Lord, isn't it?" She swallowed hard and looked to Nine for assistance. "Do something," she hissed. "I can't take on a Time Lord by myself."

"I am nonfunctional," Nine injected quickly. "If you're looking for a TARDIS to escape, I'm not going to be able to assist you. I have no access to the Eye of Harmony for the final Block Transfer Protocol to make me fully operational. Leave her alone."

"The energy is here," Marcus snarled as he grabbed her wrist and twisted it to drive her to her knees. "I can feel it running through your veins." He held up a small knife. "But am I going to release that power?"

She eyed the knife and weighed the potential scenarios through her mind. The blade glinted in the light of the TARDIS coral and she gaped with horror. "Rassilon, help me."

~~oooOOOooo~~

Spencer stirred from his heap on the floor. He let out a moan as he rubbed at his head and slapped together a dry tongue to the roof of his mouth.

"What the bloody heck happened?"

He looked up quickly to the open vault door and to the voices he could hear inside. He didn't scuffle to the door – he didn't have to. There was only one thing that he could do. He pulled out his phone and dialed for help.

~~oooOOOooo~~

The slow life. Wake up. Eat. Work. Sleep. Wake up again.

Was this what he had _really_ signed up for? After almost a millennium of freedom to travel all of Space and Time and experiencing the wonders of the entire universe. Endless miles of adventure and freedom.

…And now here he was sitting in a meeting with the Torchwood financial Board discussing the economic future of the Alien Weapons Research Division. If he had a knife right about now, he'd probably end it all.

He was slouched so deeply into his chair so as to have only the very rise of his butt sitting on the very edge of the chair, and the tops of his shoulders on the backrest, but he watched the discussion with mild attention. Ultimately, the outcome of the meeting would directly affect his department, so he had to at least feign interest.

He sorely needed an out to this hell. Something. Anything. Oh Rassilon send an invading alien army.

There was a vibration in his jacket pocket, and he covertly popped in his earpiece.

"Rose" he whispered hoarsely. "Save me. If you truly love me you will find a way to get me out of this meeting."

_"__Doc, it's Spencer. Buddy, you gotto get down here to the lab."_

"Still in Hell right now, Spencer. But I've been assured that I can get the bus out of here in a half hour. What's up?"

_"__It's Rose."_

He sat up fast. "Is she okay? He held up a hand to silence a querying Board Member.

_"__No, mate. She's not. Seems like there's a Time Lord party going on that you weren't invited to."_

"Meaning?"

_"__Borusa and Rassilon – those names mean anything to ya, man?"_

The Doctor was out of his chair immediately. He made no apology as he blasted out of the room. "Do what you can to keep her safe. I'm on my way."


	26. Return of the Bad Wolf

~~oooOOOooo~~

A/N: Taking public transit puts my mind in really weird places… So does no sleep and not enough coffee … I'm not quite sure which of the two are responsible for this. Just remember one thing, peeps, as we move ahead. This is far from over ... Okay ... like Miles away ... So. Until tomorrow… J

~~oooOOOooo~~

_"I am nonfunctional," Nine injected quickly. "If you're looking for a TARDIS to escape, I'm not going to be able to assist you. I have no access to the Eye of Harmony for the final Block Transfer Protocol to make me fully operational. Leave her alone."_

_"The energy is here," Marcus snarled as he grabbed her wrist and twisted it to drive her to her knees. "I can feel it running through your veins." He held up a small knife. "But am I going to release that power?"_

_She eyed the knife and weighed the potential scenarios through her mind. The blade glinted in the light of the TARDIS coral and she gaped with horror. "Rassilon, help me."_

Marcus had to laugh. "Rassilon, Rose? You call for _him_?" He was beside himself. "That arrogant megalomaniac can't help you – he _wouldn't_ help you even if he was able."

Rose looked with desperate eyes of instruction to the TARDIS interface. "Don't be so sure of that," she grunted as she tried to pull her hand free. "I'm to be the savior of Gallifrey," she grunted. "I'm under his protection. If I call him, he will come."

God. That sounded stupid even to her.

Of course Marcus didn't appear to buy into the thin excuse. He brought the knife down along her forearm, drawing a bloody line from wrist to elbow. He grinned at her cry of pain. "Release the Wolf, Rose. Spew that energy forth and give me my escape from this pitiful planet."

"If you want escape, that can be rightly arranged," a deep voice crooned darkly from the side of the command console. "How swift will depend on any further attempt to injure that child."

Marcus coughed in shock and spluttered as he dropped Rose's wrist and took a step backward. "Rassilon!"

Rose gaped an open mouth as her wrist was released. She shuffled back toward a coral strut and held at her bleeding arm as she took in the scene before her. Nine was no longer standing beside the console. In his place stood a man she could only assume was the feared Grand Master himself. Dressed in long crimson robes, open to reveal a large golden pendant in the centre of his chest and holding a golden staff, he truly looked to be an all-powerful Lord. And, although she knew that the image ahead of her was merely the TARDIS interface playing along to her demand for assistance, she felt completely and utterly intimidated by him. She couldn't help but cower ever so slightly.

Rassilon pointed a large hand encased in a metal gauntlet toward the unnamed Time Lord. "Borusa," he snarled deeply. "My traitor!"

"You mean your _pet_," Borusa snarled in response. "Your little science experiment." He opened his arms in presentation of himself. "Well look at me, Grand Master and _God of all Time Lords_. I survived. I regenerated and lived a good life without you in it. I escaped your reach."

"It is a shame, then, that your mind remained lost in stasis," Rassilon snapped back. "You were a madman back on Gallifrey, and you remain one now."

"At your hand," he charged.

"At your _own_ hand," Rassilon corrected with mirth. "Your insatiable hunger for immortality and power drove you insane."

"I'm not insane. I am in full control of my facilities."

"You speak nonsense. You stand before me now, with a wish to harm this daughter of Gallifrey in order to come right back to within my arm's reach," he snarled as he curled his gauntleted hand into a fist and raised it high. "I am of the mind to allow this, if only for the right to get my revenge on you."

Borusa narrowed a glare toward the image of Rassilon. "You call me a traitor and talk of vengeance" he threatened as he pointed a finger of accusation toward Rose. "And yet you stand before me to protect the child bride of the Doctor – the man who is Gallifrey's murderer."

"Hey," she countered with a light wave. "Don't drag me into this, okay? You two just keep on … whatever this is." She shot a look up to the door as the Doctor skidded into the vault with a squeak of rubber soles on tiled floor. "Doctor!"

The look on his face was one of pure horror. His eyes were wide and wild, his brows high, as he looked between the two arguing Time Lords. His horrified gaze shifted down to Rose, who sat on her hip in the crook of a coral strut and held at her injured arm.

"Rose. What have you done?"

She shook her head quickly. "Nothing. I didn't do _anything_."

"What did you do?" He demanded again in a disturbed voice.

"TARDIS," Rose snapped. Her eyes were locked on her lover. "The Doctor's here."

The image of Rassilon appeared to blow a breath of relief and then shimmered in swirling colours back into the image of Nine. "I don't ever desire to take that form for another moment, Rose. Please don't ever request that of me again."

"But you do such a convincing job of it," she said with a smile as she stroked at the coral to her side. "You saved me, sweetheart. Thank you."

Borusa was livid. "You deceive me? A TARDIS and a human child?"

"Apparently the TARDIS is very good at deception," the Doctor snipped with a look to Nine as he circled Borusa. "You were supposed to be dead. You were killed during the war!"

"Yeah, right," Rose snarled lightly as she drew herself to a stand. "One thing I'm fast learning about you bloody Time Lords is that you're pretty good at outrunning death's reach. Even when your planet explodes, it doesn't." She shouldered past the Doctor and snatched his sonic screwdriver from his pocket. "I'm _fine_ by the way. Thanks for asking. What's the setting to stitch myself up?"

"1310D," he answered around a clearing of his throat. "Why, what happened?" His eyes flared to see the state of her arm. He snatched out to cradle it on both hands. The look upon his face was pained and apologetic. "Rose. I'm so sorry."

She pointed at Borusa. "You didn't do it. He did."

The Doctor's face morphed to fury as he turned and leered into Borusa's face. "Why go after her?"

"Why else," he answered. "But to unleash Time, power this TARDIS, and away from this mundane, pitiful existence." He pounded the butt of his hand against his forehead. I have tried. Tried. Tried."

"And you think that by hurting her, you'll unleash the wolf?" He shook his head. "It doesn't work that way. She has protections in place to prevent that happening."

He peered around either side of his wrist toward him. "Some walls can be shattered, Doctor."

"You were my professor of mind shielding techniques, you know how good I can be at setting those barriers up. The protections I put in place can't be broken." He took hold of the collar of Borusa's shirt and hauled him up to put them face to face. "Now. You hurt my Rose, I get to hurt you."

"That's such a human thing to say," Borusa chided with a laugh. He shoved the Doctor from him. "Did you want to grab your crotch and dramatically thumb your nose at the same time, swagger, then take a swing at me? Apes. All of them. Damn Apes who haven't yet evolved into anything worth nurturing."

"You're a father to human children." He saw a slight break in Borusa's hard façade and decided to run with it. "And that's what you consider your daughter to be? An ape?"

Borusa lowered his head and looked up at the Doctor with a wobble in his head and a look through his brows. "She's not mine, Doctor." He straightened up and slapped both hands on his chest. "This body isn't even mine. Lumbering, heavy, vessel that it is."

The Doctor stood very still for a long moment as he digested the words spat out by Borusa. "What," he finally muttered with a curl across his entire top lip that bared his top front teeth. "What are you talking about?"

"I disintegrated into pure telepathic energy because of the energies within the Tantalus Eye. Destroying the Daleks gave me the shockwave push that I needed to escape Gallifrey." The side of his mouth lifted in a smile. "Your final act of destruction, oh, how that opened walls across the dimensions. For a infantismal moment in time the barriers fell, and I was free."

"What are you saying," he questioned unsurely.

"I found freedom from Rassilon's experiment, and from Gallifrey's war with the Daleks." He grinned a dark smile. "I found myself in this realm, a new world. One that I could conquer, and so I took this body." The smile fell into disgust.

"But you learned that humans don't fall so easy," the Doctor breathed with slight victory. "Their will is strong, isn't it?"

"For a primitive and sorely inferior species, yes. I have to admit the task wasn't as easy as I thought." He huffed in annoyance. "Sure, some are weak willed and easy to manipulate, but as a majority…"

The Doctor smiled. "There are reasons I love this planet like I do; why I admire the human race." He looked to Rose, who was being attended to by Spencer, with an expression of pure adoration. "And why I fell in love with one human in particular."

"Love has always been a destructive power," Borusa countered. "It's destroyed worlds."

The Doctor snapped his attention back to his fellow Time Lord. "It's also brought them together. It's why this planet is so strong, because its people have this intense passion for one another." He took a stride toward Borusa. "I can save you," he offered. "Rose and I. We can help."

Rose snorted. "Please, no," she whispered under her breath.

The Doctor ignored her. "Borusa. You are brilliant; a genius. Together, imagine what we can do. We are the last of the Time Lords. We're so few, we have to work together to protect what we have left of Gallifrey. The knowledge. The wisdom of our people honoured across all of Time and Space."

For a minute second Borusa looked to take the metaphorical hand of assistance from the Doctor. There was a splintering fracture in his maniacal expression.

"Rose," the Doctor urged. "Tell him. Tell him that we can help him."

"Yeah," she muttered blandly as Spencer completed the bandaging of her arm. "Totally."

"You can be more convincing than that."

Rose stood up and walked slowly toward the Doctor. She remained a couple of feet behind him and put her fakest smile on her face. "If the Doctor wants to help you, Borusa, then take his offer. I stand by his side with this. He can help you. He _will_ help you."

Borusa looked between Rose and the Doctor. There was genuine pleading in the eyes of the Time Lord. The Human's expression held far less eagerness to help out, but her steeled stance told him that she wouldn't deny her Time Lord anything that he wanted; including helping out a mad man.

His eye twitched. Such blind devotion.

"Your human," he slid a look to the Doctor. "Her love for you is such that she would give anything for you. Even sacrifice herself for you, wouldn't she."

Rose licked at her lip. "I would," she affirmed. "I would give my life for him."

"No she wouldn't." The doctor shook his head. "I would never allow it."

"I don't believe you have the choice," Borusa muttered with slight victory. His eyes shifted back to the Doctor. "Do you want to know why you never received the topmost scores in my classes, Doctor?"

Such an abrupt change in topic caused a deep seeded worry inside of the Doctor, but he coolly played along. "Why's that?"

"You were a very diligent study," Borusa stated with a slight twitch in his lip. "Brilliant."

"Thanks, but…"

"But your problem, Doctor, was that while you could imagine just about every possible scenario, there were always those very small and ignored minute probabilities in your final work."

He frowned in confusion. "Is this actually going somewhere?"

"Oh it is, I assure you," he said with a fast darkening grin. "Take your telepathic protection of your beloved as an example."

The Doctor shifted uncomfortably. "Oh-kay."

"She is so tightly protected against the beast within her rising at her own duress. Oh, the barriers of a Prydonian Telepathic Master have it locked it up so tightly." He leaned in a little. "But you forgot about something."

"Leave her alone," he snarled in warning.

"Oh," Borusa laughed with a step backward. "She's very safe from me, Doctor. Very. _Very_. Safe." His laugh stopped. "But you. Oh. You. What you failed to factor in to your protection equation, young Lord, were the lengths she would go to protect you."

"Oh no," the Doctor hissed with rapid realization. "No."

Borusa held up his knife and quickly plunged it into the Doctor's shoulder. He grinned a maniacal grin to Rose as the Doctor let out an anguished cry. "Come on out, little wolf!"

"Rose," the Doctor cried out as he fell to a knee. "No!"

The searing energy hidden inside Rose's mind behind the Doctor's shields immediately shattered through their barricades and burst forward. Rose felt her cheeks flame and her eyes burn gold. She lunged forward and shoved hard into the chest of Borusa.

"Leave him alone!"

The excitement within Borusa was palpable. He grinned wildly to see the amber light shining in the eyes of Rose Tyler. "Oh, you are _beautiful_," he sneered. "A magnificent Goddess of Time."

"You wanna play," Rose sang with a haunted smile that slowly eked down to a flat expression as she glared down her target. "Then come play." She flicked her fingers with the invitation of a Shaolin monk inviting the fight.

The Doctor got to his feet and ran to put himself in between Rose and Borusa. He put his hands on her shoulders and coaxed her to look at him. "Rose. Rose, look at me. You need to stop this. Push it back down. Fight it, love. Please."

Her head ticked. "But I want you safe, my Doctor," she said softly with the most affectionate expression in her eyes as she stroked his face. She gasped at the wound on his shoulder and gave him a sorrowful look before she pressed her lips against it. As it sealed beneath her lips, her eyes locked hard on the man who was once a stoic and hard individual, but now danced around like a maniac. "You, on the other hand." She slowly raised her hand. "I will destroy you. I don't care if you _are_ among the last of the Time Lords, you will fall at my hand."

"Oh yes," he cheered. "More, little wolf. Bring it all out – burst free!"

"It's going to kill her," the Doctor yelled as he grabbed at her arm to stop her from making what he knew would be a big mistake. "Stop it, Rose. Look at me. Please. Look at me. Ignore him. Baby, please."

Her eyes snapped back to his and her head tilted with a light laugh. "Did you just call me, _baby_, Doctor?"

"Yeah. I guess I did," he said with a soft smile. "So. Come on. Listen to me. Stop this."

She winced and stumbled. "Oh God. Help me. It's burning. I can't stop it. I can't." Her eyes snatched back to Borusa and she rose again to her full height. "Oh, but I'll stop you."

The Doctor looked to Nine. "TARDIS, you have to help me out here. Run the new calculations – tell me how I can stop this."

"She needs to expel that energy, Doctor," he answered back. "Because she's going to burn if this keeps up."

"Thanks for telling me something that _I didn't know_," he snarled sarcastically in response. Again he grabbed for Rose and pulled her to him. He drew her face to his with a touch of his fingers to her chin. He hid his horror at the heat of her skin. "Hello," he said with his trademark grin. "Fancy a kiss from a handsome fella?"

"I thought you wanted me to cool down," she purred cheekily. She playfully nipped a bite in the air and struggled away from him. Her expression fell to dark again. "First things first, though."

"Now now, Rose," the Doctor sang gently as he hooked her hand in his and guided her back to him. He put his hand on her hip and held her as though dancing. "Just ignore him. Let's just be you and me. Doctor and Rose." He touched his cheek to her hair and swayed them lightly. "Tell me. Have you ever made love in a TARDIS?" At her shudder he whispered in her ear. "No? Neither have I. But we could, you know. And it'll be brilliant." He stared urgently to Nine. "Absolutely brilliant."

Nine shook his head. "Keep her calm. Figure out a way to share it between you both, blast it my way, and it might be survivable."

The Doctor winced a moment, then pulled back and looked into Rose's face. "Oh. Figuring it out is the fun part, _right_ Rose?" He dipped her deeply and pulled her up quickly back against him. "How are we feeling?"

"I could do this forever," she breezed dreamily.

"Forever," the Doctor whispered. His eyes widened as the answer flew into him. "That's it. Forever."

"This is so saccharine that I'm going into diabetic shock," Borusa snapped. "Come on, Doctor. You want that TARDIS up and running, let's pull that Vortex from her! Let's rip it."

He felt her stiffen in his hold. "Oh come on," he growled toward Borusa. "Don't push this, I'm working on it."

"Sacrifice the girl, there's plenty of them out there that can wet your whistle, Doctor."

"You filthy pig," Rose growled out as she shoved off the Doctor and stalked him down. "I thought Time Lords were supposed to be respectful and dignified."

"You haven't met too many of them, have you?"

"I've met enough, I reckon." Her hair whipped wildly at her face, and her eyes shone. Her smile was slow and dark. "Did you know that I see your every atom. Every little piece of energy. I can see where you begin and end. Where the man resides." She snapped her arms apart. "And I divide you into body and soul!"

"Rose. No!"

The chest of the Assistant Director for Torchwood surged forward as bright light and energy ripped out through his open blazer.

"I scatter you," she sang hauntingly. "Back into Time where you belong." Her golden eyes shifted to the heavy thud of a human form dropping to the ground. "I bring you life," she finished as she pointed a hand to body on the ground. "For your daughter."

Rose suddenly lurched backward as the cough of gun shots rang out through the vault. She felt the hit of each of three bullets into her chest and stumbled to her knees. Her head raised up, full of confusion and heartbreak. She was only vaguely aware of the Doctor's horrified scream of her name, and of him falling beside her to pull her into him. She was numb, but she knew that he'd laid her on her back and ripped open her shirt to look at the damage.

As her golden stare darkened, she heard his heart wrenching, single sob. she heard his voice begging for help, begging for her to please regenerate.

"But I don't know how," she thought tearfully as her entire world went dark.


	27. Regeneration

A/N: The TARDIS can get a virtual tow-rope around the Earth and pull an entire planet through space to put her back in place. Keep that level of pure crazy-ass awesomeness in the ability of a Time Lord and TARDIS in mind when you go into this, okay? The Doctor can always pull off the impossible and make the coolest and most unusual stuff happen.

If you don't buy into what I've written here. I'm Sorry. So Sorry.

The next chapter will make all this insanity worth it, okay? No more dark and dreary… It gives me a headache.

I'm in the mood for some sibling rivalry at Lungbarrow.

~~oooOOOooo~~

The Doctor stood watching in horror as Rose went after Borusa yet again. This time around, Bad Wolf was much more twisted and out of control, and he had no idea if he would be able to settle her down long enough to do what he felt had to be done. There was a solution. He knew it. He saw the answer as clear as day. Even the TARDIS interface could see it and urged him onward.

But could he do it? Did he even _want_ to do it?

Oh who was he kidding? Of course he did. _Oh Rassilon yes_, he wanted to do this. All of time and space wanted him to do this.

He snapped himself out of his own question and held out his hand to the stalking Wolf. "Rose," he called disarmingly. "Come here." His eyes flared as wide as his mouth to take in the scene before him. His heart dropped into his stomach. "Oh no."

Her whole body shone with golden energy that rippled like waves up from her feet, through her chest and along her arms. Although there was no wind inside the vault, her hair flew wildly around her face, glowing as bright as the light inside her eyes.

"Did you know that I can see your every atom? Every little piece of energy. I can see where you begin and end. Where the man resides." She dramatically snapped her arms outward. "And I divide you into body and soul."

No! She couldn't do this! She wasn't in control. She'd be horrified to know she'd killed a man. "Rose," he cried out desperately. "No!"

The Doctor didn't see the man and the soul separate. His eyes caught and locked on Jackson, who stood, hunched, with a gun held in both hands; his aim locked onto Rose. The Doctor launched into a run, his mind on getting in between Rose and the gun, and knocking the weapon from Jackson's hold. He managed to claw his hands around Jackson's wrist to haul the gun to the ground, but not before three shots had been squeezed out. He struggled to hold the soldier's aim of the gun into the ground and emptied the remainder of the magazine into the tiled floor.

The Doctor looked back up in time to see Rose's chest propel back against the strike of bullets. Her arms and head flailed forward as her feet fell out from beneath her. He screamed out her name in horrified desperation as her white shirt turned deep crimson. It was a cry so strangled, so agonizing, that it took all of the breath inside his chest to call to her. His movement toward her was so fast that he didn't register that he'd raised his elbow into Jackson's face and brought the big man down to his knees with the strike.

The Doctor slid across the floor on his knees to catch Rose as she crumpled to the ground. She fell heavy against his chest and knees with a sickening wet thud and gasping rattled breath.

"Rose," he panted in horrific realization as blood bubbled up through her lips and rolled down her cheek to her ear. "Oh God. No. Rose." His head shot up to the doorway, where Spencer stood frozen in shock. "Spencer," he yelled. "Find someone. Get some help."

Rose pulled in a bubbled and rattled breath. The Doctor looked back down to her and tried to give her an encouraging smile. "I'm here Rose," he said gently as he lay her down on her back on the floor. "Look at me. Concentrate on my voice. You're going to be okay. Just a knick." He bit at his lip as he grabbed hold of the collar of her shirt with both hands and then tore it open along the centre of her chest with a single hard pull. He couldn't hold back the sob that rose into his throat when he saw the gaping wounds in the valley between her breasts.

He rocked back onto his knees and covered his mouth with a bloody hand. He choked back another sob as he slid his hand under her neck to pull her up against his chest. He rocked her lightly.

"Please Rose, don't go," he begged tearfully. "Stay with me, please." He shot a look to Nine. "Help me. Please, help her. Do something!"

"That's non survivable, even with medical intervention," Nine muttered sadly behind him. "Doctor. I'm sorry."

"She can regenerate," he growled in reply. "She's Time Lord. She just needs to regenerate, and we'll be okay." He smoothed at her hair and looked tearfully at her closed eyes. "Did you hear that, Rose. Just regenerate. Please. Just regenerate. Stay with me." He pulled her face into his chest and rocked her back and forth. He couldn't fight the flood of tears down his cheeks. "You promised me forever, Rose. This isn't forever." His body shook. "We've got so much left to do together, Rose. You can't leave now. We're just starting out." He pulled her tightly up against him and finally collapsed around her and wept, rocking them both back and forth.

Pete Tyler burst into the room, flanked by three security guards, Spencer, and their medical team. He growled a long and horrified cry as he stumbled along the floor to reach his daughter. He knew the prognosis was grim. To see the Doctor – a proud Time Lord – crumpled, sobbing, and wrapped around her limp form, meant that Rose was either already lost, or she wasn't going to make it.

"Doctor," he managed around his own agony. "Is she?" He hitched in a mortified breath when the Doctor raised his face; distraught and drenched with blood and tears; and shook his head. "Oh. God. No. Please no."

The Doctor's body shuddered, shook and then convulsed as he collapsed against Rose's limp body again. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. There's nothing I can do." He pulled back again and looked into her face once more. "Try, Rose. Please try. Regenerate. Please."

A Medic dropped to a knee beside the Doctor. "Let me take a look," he urged softly. "Let's see if we can help her."

The Doctor shook his head and held her tighter. "There's nothing you can do."

"At least let me try."

Pete set his hand on the Doctor's shoulder. "Let her go. Let the medical teams try to help." He shifted around to try and pry the Doctor's grip away from Rose. "Come on. There's nothing you can do from here. It's up to the professionals now."

A shattered scream threw every man in the room off guard, especially the two men guarding Rose. The Doctor and Pete looked up with horror to see Jackie at the doorway, flanked by Mother, with her hands at her mouth and furious dread in her eyes. "What happened to my baby?"

"Jackie," the Doctor peeped as she launched from the doorway and flew to the floor beside her daughter. "I'm so sorry."

Jackie looked at her child. She hovered a shaking hand over her bloodied chest and gulped back heaving sobs at the sight of her lifeless daughter. "Rose. Sweetheart. What did he do to you?" She shot a glare at the Doctor. "What did you do to her!"

He shook his head innocently. "Jackie. I didn't. I tried to stop it."

She gave a double-fisted shove into the Doctor's chest. "Get away from her!" She continued to push at him even as he fell back away from Rose. "You! Ever since she met _you_. Danger! You promised me that you'd keep her safe. _Promised me"_

He stumbled back onto his ass and allowed the onslaught to continue. Jackie needed to lash out at someone, and whether or not it was true, he felt as though he deserved it. All he could do was mutter apologies until she finally collapsed against him and dissolved completely.

"Jackie. I'm so sorry," he vowedas he embraced her shuddering body. "I'm so, so very sorry."

"You too, love," she admitted with a sob as she turned back to watch the medics scrambling to help her daughter. She knew it was pointless.

"Go say goodbye," he told her with a sniff. "While she still has consciousness left within her, tell her you love her."

Jackie nodded and crawled along the floor toward her daughter. She covered her mouth with her hand only briefly before she dropped her head down to her daughter's chest and sobbed.

The Doctor remained in a seat on the ground next to a coral strut, watching with heartbreak a mother's agony over the loss of her child. He shared her pain of loss, but chose to sit back and let her mourn with her husband. Slowly he closed his eyes and dropped his head, desperate to find a way to once again lock up the anguish of losing the most important thing in his life.

He shuddered to feel the feather-light touch of his mother's hand on his knee. "My son."

Her voice shook the upset straight back to the surface, and the Doctor crumpled again. "I can't lose her, Mother. Not again. Not like this."

She took his cheek in her hand and guided his tear stained eyes to hers. "Then don't."

"What can I possibly do?" He leaned back on the strut and covered his forehead in his hand. "Rassilon," he cursed. "Even if we could pull her out of this, the Vortex would refire inside her, and it'd kill her anyway."

"Then share in her pain," she charged in a hard voice. "You are a Time Lord, Doctor. Use that brain of yours. Be that brilliant Prydonian Master I know you to be. Be your father's son, and pull the woman you love back to you."

"Do you _really _think this is the time for some harsh love, Mother?" He pointed with both hands toward his fallen beloved. "_Now_?"

"Indeed," she challenged.

The Doctor gave her an aggrieved glare and rose to his feet. "Most parents," he hissed as he stalked toward her and snatched a scarf from around her neck. "Most parents in this instance would hold their child and comfort them in their pain." He rolled his eyes. "But no. Not a mother from Gallifrey – Rassilon forbid you nuture me– it just ends up a moment to give lecture."

He looked at the brilliant crimson and gold fabric in the light. "Yes. Silk. This will work perfectly." He pointed to the TARDIS interface as he moved to the console and set coordinates. "If – and it's an unlikely if – this works. Then don't waste any time."

Nine nodded. "Understood."

"Straighten yourself up, Son," Mother warned him with a smile. "You look atrocious."

He ignored her as he moved in behind Jackie and dropped to a crouch slightly off to her side. "Jackie," he called in little over a hoarse whisper.

She twisted to take his hand in hers and pull him into a hug. "She's gone, Doctor. My baby's gone."

"We have one last chance to save her." He petted her arm lightly and then indicated Rose with a jut of his chin. "May I, please?"

She settled backward and gave him a nod. "Sure, love. But it won't work. She's gone. Just say good bye and tell her you love her."

He knelt on her right side and gently picked up Rose's left hand. Along her palm he placed the end of the scarf and carefully wrapped it three times around her hand. "Pete Tyler," he said with an even and controlled tone as he raised his eyes to Peter. "Will you give and gladly consent that your daughter and I come together as one?"

"Yeah, mate," Pete graveled out as he put his hand on the Doctor's shoulder. "I give and gladly consent."

Jackie looked highly confused. "What's happening?"

The doctor looked to Jackie as he wrapped the other end of the scarf around his right hand. "Will you give and gladly consent, Jackie Tyler?"

She shook her head. "What're you doing? This isn't … What's this about?"

"I made a promise to Rose," the Doctor vowed giving Jackie an earnest look. "I swore to her that she was going to become my wife, and I'm not letting this stop me from fulfilling my promise. Please say that you give and gladly consent."

"Yeah. Sure," she breezed softly in understanding. "I give and gladly consent."

The Doctor joined their silk-wrapped hands, fingers intertwined, and leaned down to press his forehead against hers.

"With the consent of both parents of the bride, I call upon the Council of the Time Lords to bless and accept our union."

His mother took place at his side. " As member of Council, I approve of this union and appeal to Rassilon of Prydon, the Grand Master and Deity of all Time Lords to allow these two children of the house of Lungbarrow the priviledge of a shared line of Time. Ensure that their bond last for all eternity, throughout all of Time and Space. No force – not even the curse of death – shall separate them."

The Doctor pressed a kiss to Rose's temple and shifted his mouth to her right ear as his hand slid to her face to touch fingers to her temple and his thumb to her cheek. "I am going to whisper something in your ear, Rose," he said softly. "Hear every part of it. Don't ever forget it, and never, ever say it." His closed his eyes as his voice ghosted across her ear and initiated connection with her mind. "I've just told you my name," he promised. "With that I name you my wife." He nudged her mind with his. "Just say you will."

She gasped underneath him.

"Come back to me, Rose," he urged, spurred on by her gasp and by the increasing tingle of her mind opening to his. "Connect with me."

Another deep gulping inhale and her eyes flashed open.

"Be one with me, Rose."

Her hand snapped up to his face, clutching at him like a talon. Her breath panted, and her eyes were wide and fired. "Doctor," she gasped. "I will."

Golden energy surrounded them both as the Doctor slowly coaxed his bride from where she lay on the ground to a stand in front of him. They painted a haunting image, a silhouette of two lovers with their joined hands held at their chests, and their minds merged with the touch of their hands to each other's face.

Jackie's hands covered her mouth as she watched her daughter and the Doctor rise to a stand in front of her. "Oh my God. Pete. Our little girl…"

"She's alive," he croaked. "That sonovabitch did it. He actually did it."

"It's a miracle," Jackie squeaked. "I have to hug them."

"No," Mother said sternly. "You must wait until the joining is complete. They'll let you know when they're ready."

"When you say _joining,_" Jackie asked quietly. "Is this going to be one of those Time Lord things that is going to end up much more complicated and potentially dangerous than a Human union?"

"It is an unbreakable bond, Jackie."

"In other words, yes," she sighed. "I should have known."

Pete leaned down to kiss at her ear. "Jackie. Don't question it. It saved our daughter's life. It pulled her back from the dead."

"I love that man," Jackie breezed wiping a tear from her cheek.

The Doctor and Rose separated from their connection, both with identical inhales. He slid his hand from her temple to cup at her jaw. "And now," he said with a smile. "I kiss my bride." With careful tenderness he pressed his mouth against hers to kiss her for the first time as his wife.

Rose flung her arm around his shoulder and hauled him in for a far deeper, and much less tender kiss. She grinned against his mouth when they separated. "If you're going to do it, Doctor. Make it count."

He slid his hand to her waist and laughed lightly against her ear. "Just wait until the wedding night, I'll make sure that it counts," he promised. He looked over her shoulder to the trio of family and smiled to them as he snatched Rose in against him in a hug. Inside he could feel the building burn of the Vortex rising inside him, rampaging against every cell inside his body.

Jackie broke formation with the intent to run and hug the newlyweds, but was immediately stopped in her tracks as the Doctor raised his hand and shook his head quickly. "Jackie. No. Not yet," he called. "That was the _easy _bit." He pulled back from Rose and looked with glowed eyes into her face, not surprised to see her eyes as alight as his.

"Together," he said along a breath. "We have to get this out of us, or we're both going to burn."

"Never simple with us, is it, Doctor," she sighed as she stepped to his right, mindful of their still-joined hands, and nestled against his shoulder. "Never easy."

"Easy would be boring," he countered with a laugh. "Where's the fun in simple?" He clutched her hand tightly. "Now, concentrate the energy thataway," he coached with a point toward the TARDIS. "Give it all to her. Hold none of it back."

"Okay," she breathed worriedly with a nod.

Both the Doctor and Rose inhaled a deep breath within themselves, and then expelled the brightly glowing Vortex power toward the TARDIS with a long and draining exhale. They both staggered backward as the power released, and was caught in the heart of the TARDIS.

The bright pulsing of the machine, and a whir and whine, filled the vault. Rose looked to the machine with proud eyes of a mother, the Doctor with a wide grin of excitement.

That excitement was dashed, however, at a frightened peep from Rose. The Doctor shot a fast and worried glance toward her. "You okay?"

She shook her head as she looked down at her arms. She turned her hand in front of her, concerned by the rippling yellow light glowing out from underneath. "Doctor," she queried in panic. "It didn't work!"

He winced. "Yeah," he managed. He blew out a breath and turned toward her. He set his hands on her shoulders and cleared his throat. His expression was apologetic. "Do you remember, back after the gamestation, when I took the vortex from you?"

She nodded.

"And do you remember what happened after that?"

Realization hit, and she backed away from him. "Oh no. No. No. No." She shook her head. "No. I can't. We can't. _You_ can't!"

"We don't have a choice." He snatched her in for a tight hug. "Every cell inside our bodies are dying, Rose. You've just come back from being shot. It's the only way to go on." He nestled his cheek against her ear. "Time Lord trickery, remember? We do this to cheat death."

"But I'm scared," she whimpered.

"So am I," he admitted. "I always am, and I'm a bit of a pro at this." He clutched her tighter. "But I have an idea, so that we can keep our pretty faces this time around. Because," he adjusted his blood stained tie. "Well, look at us. We're an amazing looking couple."

"We are, aren't we?"

He nodded with a grin and a wink. "Gorgeous." He leaned down to kiss her and took a look at his hand. Like hers it shimmered with yellow. He pulled back and clutched her hand tightly. "Well," he croaked with a wince. "Let's get it over and done with."

Her hand tightened around his. She looked to him with an expression of absolute devotion. "Just in case I. I don't. Just know that I love you, Doctor."

"I love you-" his words cut off sharply as the regenerative forces took hold of them both and exploded from their neck and hands with bright, dripping flames.

Every person in the room shielded their eyes from the searing light of the regenerating Time Lord and Lady. The heat of it blasted by them all like a shockwave from bomb blast.

The Doctor fought against a total regeneration as he felt the final healing forces come to completion. With the effort of thirteen men, he hauled up their joined hands to lever the energies toward their TARDIS. "Channel it, Rose," he yelled through gritted teeth. "Toward. TARDIS."

They blasted the TARDIS console with their combined regenerative powers. The console lit up with brilliant flaming light and white-hot sparks. A vacuum pulled around them both as the massive structure dragged and spun into itself, taking with it light and sound. There was an almighty and brilliant orange and yellow flash and then the coral structure was gone.

In its place stood a grey metal cylinder with a pair of doors at its centre.

Both the Doctor and Rose staggered backward out of the power as though released from a game of Tug-o-War. The Doctor very quickly righted himself. Rose, however, fell backward, unconscious, into the Doctor's chest. He very quickly dipped to slide an arm across the underneath of her knee, and picked her up into his chest.

"Rose," Jackie blurted in panic. "Is she?"

"Regeneration coma," the Doctor answered quickly. "She had bigger injuries than I had to deal with. It's going to take her some time to heal fully from it."

Jackie stepped forward to touch the face of her daughter. The Doctor shook his head and took a step backward. "No." He looked over his shoulder at the TARDIS. "We've got to go."

"Go where," Jackie demanded.

"Rose needs time to heal," he answered. "And she can't get that here." He looked upward. "I'll take us into the Vortex, and she can sleep there."

"But!"

"We'll be back in ten minutes, Jackie," he promised with a smile. "Don't worry."

"Yeah, that's only if you know how to fly that thing," she challenged him. "And your past record isn't that spiffy." She looked at Mother. "Twelve hours was actually twelve months I'll have you know. Damn thought I'd lost my rose, I did."

"Brand new TARDIS," he said with a wink. "This one'll behave. And if not, I'll let you have at her, how's that?"

Jackie poked him in the chest. "You bring her back safe, Doctor. You hear me?"

"I promise you." He pulled Rose tighter against his chest. "Now. We really should get going." He looked to his mother. "Are you coming with us; or are you waiting here?"

She hooked her arm through Jackie's. "Your new mother holds a ransom as precious to you as the ransom you hold to her. She shall keep me safe if you do the same for her daughter." She looked to Jackie. "Am I right?"

"Quite right."

The Doctor smiled a wide and toothy grin. "Right-oh. Be back in ten minutes, okay?"

Mother gave him a nod. "Make sure that you have your father with you on your return."

"Yes, mum." He lightly bowed as he walked to the doors of the TARDIS and waited for them to open to let them in. "Okay girl," he cooed as he stepped across the threshold. "First things first. The heavy metal cylinder look has got to go."


	28. Two Brothers

A/N: Ahhh … The last two chapters didn't go down so well, did they? :chuckle:

It's all good. I'm still happy to have gotten it out and over and done with.

Thanks for making it this far, BTW, and I hope that you continue on my journey. To all of you who have taken the time to offer their reviews: Thank you! I appreciate it muchly. It truly does keep you at it!

This is nothing but some real truly pointless fluff. The angst in the last couple of chapters kind of drained me, so I had to write something stupid airy and fun to get up outta my funk. This is the result. OOC in places, yep. I admit it.

This is not wholly essential to the rest of the story, really. The only way it moves anything forward is to put my players in the same place so that I can move onward and upward.

But I hope you enjoy anyway. They'll all slide back into proper form next chapter when things get a little more back on track.

Welcome to Kasterborous…

~~oooOOOooo~~

Soft warm winds whistled across an unkempt field of grass and weaved a spiraling path through a stand of old growth trees. The trees, obviously not native to the area, stood tall, with winding rich brown trunks and glimmering leaves of silver. Each carefully planted tree bowed a lean over a dusty and long disused path. The bow of the trees was such, that if one was to rise up onto their toes, they could easily reach up and pluck a spring flower or a touch at a summer leaf. The disused path borders were alive with broad, red, wild flowers, and encircled around a proud and aged house that stood tall overlooking a crystalline blue lake.

A postcard would not do this home justice. The entry way was a wide staircase that rose almost immediately from the front gate and led up to a massive wooden deck surrounded by a three-foot high wrap of railing with intricately designed panels that spoke of tales and stories in time.

The cut in the panels channeled the light winds from the lake into a glorious symphony of whistles that sang a hauntingly beautiful song. Usually that song was sung in uninterrupted melody listened to only by the birds and woodland creatures burrowing in the gardens below. Today, however, the song was interrupted by the shifting whining inhale and exhale of a materializing TARDIS machine.

There was a cry of birds, and the sudden din of a flock bursting from the trees, as the rich blue Police Box materialized in the garden to the left of the entrance staircase to the home. There was a creak of a door in desperate need of oiling, and a pale and slightly gaunt young face popped out to look around. His shoulder emerged slowly, and then his hip and body, and he ran his hand over his floppy bangs as he frowned and shook his head.

"Well. This is unexpected," he breathed as he jumped to one side to allow the bullet that was his red-headed companion to shoot by him.

"Oh wow. This place is gorgeous!" Amy spun in place at the foot of the staircase and inhaled a deep breath. "Where are we this time?" She suddenly set a frown on her face and gave him a playful cut-eyed look. "And what is the catch here? Swamp monsters? Alien blood suckers? Giant wasps that eat humans for lunch?"

He looked mildly put out by that. "I believe that the only catch we may face here, Amy, is the appearance of that brother of mine." He smiled as he let his eyes trace a homestead he had not visited since before he'd left Gallifrey seven hundred years ago. "I don't know why he brought us here, but I'm not particularly affronted by it."

Amy grinned and held up a finger. "Okay. So. Number one. I finally get to meet this brother of yours? And, oh, do you think Rose will be with him, because I could seriously do with some one on one girl time. And two, where are we?"

"You don't get that," he swirled his hand in the air. "Girl thing with River Song? I would think so seeing that she's a girl."

"I see her only once in a while, and there is nothing girlie girl about her." She pulled her hair over her shoulder to try and stop it blowing in her face. "She's all. Well. The female version of you – which is a terrifying thought to be honest."

The doctor let one brow lift and brought his hands together in front of him. "I'm trying my best not to be offended by that."

She nudged him with her shoulder. "You're adorable you big ole raggedy man." She grinned up into his smile. "So. Answer me the questions two."

His eyes raised in recollection and then he looked back down with a nod. "Of course. One. Yes. You will meet my brother, although I am not quite sure how he will have managed to make that happen." He thought for a second. "Although he _is_ the Doctor, _well, _me_, _and – if I do say so – we are rather brilliant, so of course he found a way. And two. This is the summer home of my parents."

Her eyes widened in thrill. "So. We're on Gallifrey? You _actually _brought me to Gallifrey?"

"No," he answered carefully. "We're on the other side of Kasterborous from where Gallifrey is, or, _was_."

"And I'm also going to guess that, given this place looks a little bit neglected, that your parents aren't here."

He shook his head. "No."

"Oh what a shame, because I'd really love to meet them." She turned her head to look down her shoulder at the TARDIS, and pulled her hair that had stuck to her glossed lips. "You know. I wonder if I should begin to think with suspicion that River and Rory have yet to emerge from the TARDIS."

"I wouldn't be concerned," he muttered with a chuckle and lean toward her ear. "A man doesn't wait for two thousand years for his love to then run off with another woman."

"You never know with men," she huffed. "Rory," she yelled with a deeper Scottish twill than usual. "Get out here and check this place out. If it's on the market, we're buying."

Rory stuck his head out of the TARDIS door and sniffed as he took a look around. "There's a catch, right? Monsters, Aliens?"

The Doctor shook his head. "I'm not answering that question again," he bowed to Amy. "I leave it to you, fair maiden."

"Amy is no longer a maiden, Sweetie," River Song breezed as she stepped around Rory and spread her arms in the warm sunlight. "Kasterborous. The gateway to the heavens." She tilted her head coyly toward the Doctor. "Such a romantic location."

He cleared his throat uncomfortably. "Well. Yes. I suppose."

Amy giggled at his discomfort. "You really should just run with it, Doctor."

"I don't _just run _with anything," he suggested. He shielded his eyes with his forearm and ducked lightly underneath it as the wind kicked up and the telltale whining push and pull sound of a TARDIS engine sounded off to his right. "Saved by TARDIS," he said with a smirk.

River Song braced and snapped her hand to her gun. She held her other arm across the space in front of the Doctor and Amy in a protective measure as a tall, metal cylindrical TARDIS materialized about ten feet ahead of her. "I've got this," she said with a growl. "Stay back."

"Oh, dear. River," The Doctor breathed. "There's no need. I'm expecting this joker."

Her curls bobbed as she spun a questioning look to him. "Excuse me?"

He shrugged. "Family."

"Oh." She relaxed immediately and stood tall as she took a couple of steps back. "You have surviving family. I didn't know that."

The metal door creaked open and the Meta-Crisis version of the Doctor stepped out of the TARDIS. He paid no mind to the entourage standing only feet from his machine. He seemed far more occupied in the quandary as to why his TARDIS still resembled a sewer pipe rather than the truly brilliant TARDIS machine design that he had tried to program.

He still wore his clothing from the vault at Torchwood, but had since discarded the jacket and blazer. His brown pin-striped pants were creased and still stained with blood, as was his Oxford, which was untucked and skewed slightly off centre. The only things still pristine and seemingly untouched by the events in the vault were his hair and his shoes.

As he leaned back to speak through the doorway, he raised a straight leg – one would assume for balance – and held on to the handle of the door. "Looks like the chip is still glitching," he advised. "Try to reset the binary code and … Oh, you've done it already?"

He drew himself to a stand and slouched his shoulders lightly as he thrust his hands into the pockets of his trousers. "Blimey. Why am I having so many problems working on that damn Chameleon Circuit. Non functional on two separate TARDIS machines. I'm cursed. Completely cursed." He scratched at his head. "Hmmm. Now what would Rose do," he asked with a threatening chuckle toward the ship. "Do you want me to go with the Tyler tactic, old girl?"

"She'd probably slap it or kick it into submission," the Doctor behind him chirped.

"Quite right, that," he answered as he levered a decent slap at the side of the TARDIS. He waited a moment with open arms of expectation as the exterior of the ship shuddered, flickered, and then morphed into the shape of a faded blue Police Box. He pressed an excited kiss to the door. "Yes. My beautiful ship. Look at you."

"And the Tyler slap works again," the Eleventh Doctor muttered with a chuckle.

"It's about as multi-functional as our sonic screwdriver," he answered with a smile as he turned and slapped his hand against his brother's for a firm shake of greeting. "Thanks for getting here on short notice. Didn't think I'd say this out loud, and with honesty, but it's good to see you again."

Eleven forced a smile and gave a nod. "And you." He eyed him up and down, noting with concern his disheveled and blood stained appearance. "You look like Hell."

"Yeah," he muttered with a look down to his belly and a shrug of his shoulder. "It's been a hell of a day." He beamed a grin to the trio standing behind Eleven. "Well. Hello. I'm the Doctor. And who are all of we then seeing my brother is too rude to introduce us?"

"You might want to clean yourself up before you make any introductions," Eleven warned.

"Yeah," he hummed with a shrug. "I'm gonna need to annex something from your TARDIS wardrobe. I got the two us out of there quick smart and didn't have time to stop and collect anything." He cracked at his neck. "And if you think I look like hell, wait until you see…"

"Rose," Eleven snapped with concern. "Where is she?"

Ten thumbed over his shoulder. His look was one of pure innocence. "She's inside. Having a sleep." His innocence turned to a huge grin. "She's great. Lovely. Brilliant. Just getting a charge up from the mess back at Torchwood. She should be up and about in no time."

He pointed his finger up and down the length of Ten's shirt. "None of that had better belong to her."

Amy fist pumped in front of her. "Yes. Rose's here. Estrogen, baby!" She cradled her hands behind her back and walked with a sneaky slow lean toward the TARDIS. "Can I go in?"

"Give her a bit," he warned. "She's out cold, and it's only been a half hour since we left Torchwood

"Is five minutes enough?"

"Rose Tyler isn't a girl that you _wake up_ if she's sleeping," Eleven warned with a wince.

"Been there, done that, got the T-Shirt." Ten grinned with a light bob in his head. "But don't worry. I think she'd be thrilled to see you, too, Amy. She told me about you and her giving floppy here a hard time a couple of days ago. She's always good for another round of the same." He pointed to Eleven's hair. "You know, I can teach you a couple of tricks to get a bit of a lift in the front there."

"I _was_ you once," he intoned blandly. "I think I know the tricks of the trade."

He set his tongue in the space between his lip and his top teeth for a moment and hen nodded. "Yet you opt for flop." He said slowly. He then shrugged. "Hey. However you want to look in your regeneration, I won't judge."

"Vanity isn't my _thing_ this time around."

Amy had her hand up and whistled patiently for attention.

Ten grabbed her hand with a grin. "What's on your mind?"

"You said that Rose and I saw each other only a couple of days ago?"

"Yep."

She frowned. "It hasn't been a couple of days. It's been _months_."

"And Time plays about with our timelines again," he chipped. "And I thought our parallel ran faster than this one." He looked to River Song and gently took her hands in his. "River Song," he crooned. "We meet again. Very lovely to see you."

"We've met?" she asked with suspicion.

"Ri-i-i-ght," he said long. "I'm the earlier version of him." He dropped her hands and thumbed to Eleven. "And I'm going to stop the spoiler chat right there." He did shoot a look of curiosity to his brother. "Are you and her, you know, yet?"

Eleven mouthed a rather obvious "No."

"Oh. In time then."

Eleven leaned an elbow against the bannister of the stairs. "Introductions complete…"

"Except mine," Rory hollered. He held his hand out. "Rory. I'm Amy's husband."

"Pleasure's mine," Ten grinned. "I'm the Doctor, I guess you can call me the Tenth, seeing as Biological Meta Crisis can be a bit of a mouthful if you need to call me in a hurry." He thumbed to Eleven. "And it works now that he's not ten anymore." He looked at him. "You're eleven, right? Well, you have to be. I did the math on regenerations a while back when Rose and me were talking about how many times I'd have to kill you to actually _kill_ you.."

"Why would you want to do that?"

"And," he continued. "With he who isn't mentioned, and the brilliant aborted regeneration that resulted in, well, me. You're it, aren't you?"

"Does it make you feel all sorts of special to remind me of my own mortality, brother?"

Ten shrugged. "If it makes you feel any better, Rose and me, we're both on regeneration two right now."

"Excuse me, _what_?"

He pursed his lips. "Oh. Yes. Forget I said that."

Eleven rounded on his Brother. "So that," he winced with a clearing of his throat. "That blood, on you _does_ belong to Rose?"

"Well.."

"What in Rassilon?" He snarled. "Let me guess. Shot, right? Of course I'm right. And where were you at the time?" He didn't allow him to speak before continuing. "You're supposed to protect her, Doctor, not let her get shot at and killed. Whether or not she can regenerate is not an excuse to be lax in protecting her."

"Hey," Ten spat back. "I did what I could to protect her, okay? I'm not from Krypton where the rays of Earth's golden sun makes me impervious to bullets."

"Krypton _exists_?" Rory asked with high brows.

"No," both Doctors snapped at him in response.

"It blew up," Ten finished darkly. He poked his finger into Eleven's chest. "I was dealing with a whole lotta Time Lord at the time. Borusa in this corner, Bad Wolf over here, Rassilon front and centre. Throw in Mother and a pushy TARDIS, and then an asshole Torchwood agent with a canon for a gun…."

"Hold on. What?" The frown was set. "What?"

"It's a long story and one I really don't want to have to rehash, okay?"

"You've got a decent gob," Eleven countered with an almost snake-like slithering bob of his head in Ten's face. "Retell the tale."

Ten huffed in annoyance. "Come here," he snapped his hands to his brother's face and let him see the incident at Torchwood. His eyes remained open to watch the varying expressions fly past his brother's eyes. Finally Eleven blinked. "Up to speed?"

"You and Rose have bonded in marriage?"

"Of all I just showed you, _that's_ what you took from it?" He then grinned and fell into a happy slouch. "But, oh yes. We are. Slightly ahead of plan, but brilliant nonetheless."

"Well. My heartfelt congratulations to you both." He coughed into his fist. "My apologies for the accusation. It was quite clear that you took all available steps to prevent this."

"You and I know that we will _both_ give our lives for her without a second thought, so don't question what lengths I will go to to make sure she survives, okay?" He looked pained. "You have no idea what it did to me to see her like that."

"I have a pretty fair idea."

He shook himself, clapped his hands, gave a broad grin, and abruptly changed the subject. "So? What's been going on with you lot, then?"

"Oh," Amy answered with a twirl of her hand in front of her. "Aliens. Time Travel. Bad things. Running, lots of running."

"Oh, so situation normal, then. Brilliant." He scratched at his sideburn. "So no plans for the next few days, am I right? Please say I'm right."

"Making plans is pretty pointless," Rory offered with a shrug. "Either something dangerous and alien crops up, or the Doctor over there screws up the flight plan and we end up somewhere other than the promise of where we supposed to go when _he_ suggested that we go somewhere."

Not too surprisingly both Doctors understood that line of thought rather perfectly.

"That isn't entirely accurate," Eleven countered with a circular wave of his hand. "At least nine times out of ten I get us to where we want to go."

Ten shook his head. "It would be more accurate to suggest a six or seven to ten ratio."

"We've had the ratio fall to four on occasion," Eleven admitted to his brother with a shrug. "Not for a while, of course, but it fell into the realm of possibility at around…"

"Four! Oh yes," Ten exclaimed with an open-mouth smile. "Back when we had the whole curly hair and scarf thing happening."

"We were _amazing _back then, weren't we?"

"Well," Ten sang. "Things _were_ simpler back then, weren't they? The offer of a jelly baby could make allies out of enemies." He slouched just slightly with a grin. "Oh. Jelly babies. I haven't had one of those in forever. Maybe me and Rose could make a quick skip back to London and pick up a few bags."

Rory flicked his finger in between the two Doctors. There was a crease in the middle of his brow and a slight curious purse to his lips. "So. If I get this right. You two are brothers, yeah?"

Both men answered in the affirmative.

"Who's the oldest?"

They each pointed to the other.

"You don't know who's older than the other?"

Ten looked to Eleven and then gave a shrug and stuffed is hands into his pockets. "Well that's a pretty broad stroked question, really. The answer does depend on what timeline you want to base your interpretation of age on. Then, of course, if the way you want to calculate age is on the Regeneration, timing of, and the such, well the answer can be different yet again." He looked to Eleven. "Right? Right. Of course." He rocked backward and forward along his feet. "Take me. I could be 907. I could be just over 12 months old. Regeneratively speaking, 10. Or age beyond regeneration four, five years old? Or even fourty five minutes, actually, seeing as I just went through a pretty spectacular aborted regeneration."

"Again?" Eleven asked flatly. "Vanity thy name is Doctor."

"The overflow energy left from healing birthed my TARDIS, thank you." He said with a frown to Eleven. "And just where are you in the timeline now? On Pete's world, Rose and I have just crossed the 12-month mark. Where are you at?"

"Oh," Eleven muttered with a look to the sky and a rub of his hands. "I think I'm at about two and a half years since Bad Wolf Bay."

Tens brows shot high. "That long? Really?" He frowned in understanding. "Flicking back and forth in time a lot, then?"

"I'm a Time Lord," Eleven countered with a smirk. "It's what we do."

Rory merely shook his head. "Are there ever any short and easy responses to a question asked of a time Lord?"

Eleven chuckled. "No."

"Well _that_ was one," Ten offered smugly.

"Okay, then _yes_. Sometimes."

Rory thought a moment, and then flicked a look through his brows at the two men. "You're both named _Doctor_, then?"

"Yes," Ten said with a smirk. "Are we confusing you, yet?"

"Mildly," Rory answered. He then raised his head. "At the risk of me asking another question that will draw out a long winded explanation that doesn't actually get me any further along in understanding what on Earth is the actual answer to my question. Could you give me a cliff's notes version of how you two came to be?"

Ten shifted his eyes to Eleven. "Did you want?"

Eleven shook his head. "Go right ahead." He moved back to take a seat next to a rather amused River Song on the stairs. "I'll correct you if you mess up."

"No doubt," Ten replied. He leaned an elbow on an ornately carved stop on the end of the bannister and crossed his legs at the ankle as he fell into a comfortable lean. "Do you remember, back some time ago, a year for me, two and a half for Floppy over there, when the Daleks dropped to Earth, moved it to just beyond the Medusa Cascade?"

"The Reality Bomb thing," Rory answered with a sharp nod. "Won't forget that any time soon."

"Right," Ten continued. "So. When floppy looked as good as I do right now." He cheekily adjusted his tie. "He got himself shot by a Dalek and had to go through a regeneration on the floor of the TARDIS."

"Do note," Eleven added. "That this fool got himself shot by the Dalek because he was blindly running down a street with hearts in his eyes because Rose had come back and he didn't see the Dalek until it was too late."

"Why are you both speaking like…" Rory raised his hands and shook his head. "You know what, never mind. Forget that I asked. I'll just take you at your word that you're blood."

"We're the same man, Rory," Eleven offered up. "Long story short. In a life and death crisis moment, with the residual power left over from the aborted regeneration that had been channeled into the hand," he pointed at Ten's right hand. "It got cut off Christmas Day 2005 during a _thing_ with a Sycorax ship…"

"A _thing_," Ten snapped incredulously. "Do you just refer to it as a _thing_?"

"Yes. Yes. We saved the planet, yay to the Doctor," Eleven muttered with a roll of his eyes. "So the hand. Regeneration power. Crisis in effect. TARDIS about to be destroyed…"

"Instantaneous Biological Meta Crisis," Ten injected with a wide and open mouthed smile as he flicked his fingers in the air in front of his body in presentation. "And that's where I came in. I grew out of _you_," he waved at Eleven. "With a little help from Donna – how _is_ Donna doing by he way? She okay? Doing good?"

"Oh, fantastic. She's married, won the lottery. Doing wonderfully."

"Oh, that's good." Ten circled his finger around his head. "And this?"

Eleven shook his head sadly. "I had to completely block her memories of us. The Time Lord consciousness was killing her."

"Ahh. That's upsetting. So no visiting her, then?"

"No."

"That's a shame. I'm sure she'd love to know how we're all doing."

Three sets of eyes were widely watching the two Doctors in urging or the story to continue. Amy urged on her Doctor with a nudge at his elbow. "Well. Finish up. How we end up with him and Rose in another parallel?"

"Oh, that's an easy one," Ten answered on his behalf. "This bumbling great hypocrite decided that I was too dangerous to stay in this parallel and dropped me off as far away from somewhere normal as possible. Not just drop me off, mind, dumped me off. No shits given in his mind as to what I was actually going to do all of a sudden as a human. He just assumed Rose would pick up his slack and take care of me."

"I knew that Rose would accept you, and then love you. _Rassilon_, you were making out on the beach before I left. How long was it before the two of you shared a bed? An hour? A day?" Eleven stood up quickly from the stairs and approached his brother. "And just who are you calling a hypocrite?"

"You, ya daft flop-haired git," he answered back sharply. "You take it upon your high and mighty self to give Rose no choice but to go back to a parallel that she didn't even want to be in, with an apparently dangerous old time Lord/Human hybrid."

"You committed genocide," Eleven snapped. "You wiped out that entire Dalek battle fleet."

"And does the destruction of Gallifrey and all its people ring any bells for you, you hypocritical twat," He snarled. "If you want to talk about who's dangerous, Doctor, then take a damn good look at yourself, because everywhere you go, destruction always follows."

"Ouch," Amy muttered under her breath. She caught Eleven's snap at her to keep out of it, and rolled her eyes in the direction of the TARDIS, where a battle-sore, exhausted Rose Tyler leaned half in and half out of the TARDIS door, wearing the Doctor's blood stained pin striped blazer and an agonized look on her face. "Rose," she breathed as she jogged over. "Are you okay? You look like Hell."

"Make them stop, Amy," she moaned. "My head's killin' me, and the more upset he gets the worse it's getting."

Amy took a look at the wince in her eyes. "This got to do with that bonding thing the Doctor mentioned earlier? You feel what he feels kind of thing?"

"Oh, I bloody hope not," Rose answered with a shudder as she clutched at her head. "Because _that_ I didn't sign up for when I told him _I will_."

"Yeah, well just in case. Oi!" Amy called across the small space between them. "You two blokes wanna knock off the yelling?" A look of fury flashed across her face as the Eleventh Doctor dismissively waved his hand at her. "Oh. He didn't just wave me off."

"He still does that, yeah?"

"Oh. Yeah." She pushed up her sleeves. "I'll go give him a proper piece of my mind and send your Doctor over here – who, I have to admit to you – is really much more dashing in person than in photos."

"When he's not covered in my blood and is dressed like a time Lord is supposed to dress, it's a better image. You just wait." She pulled out her cellphone from her back pocket and patted the blazer pockets looking to see if the sonic was in there. It was. She grinned and gave a giggle as she pressed it to her phone and activated the sonic. "Hope this works."

"Meanwhile," Amy said smoothly. "Let me go break up the new Time War."

"No need," Rose breathed huskily through a wince as the heat between brothers increased. "Got a better idea." She dialed a number and held the phone to her ear. "Great to see you again, by the way. How long's it been for you?"

"About five months." She looked her over. "Did you want me to run to the TARDIS and grab you something a little less like you're a horror movie scream girl?"

"That would be great, but wait. You won't want to miss this," she answered with a smirk. "Trust me. You'll want to capture this moment." Her smile fell as the phone picked up on the other end. "Dad! Hi. Rose. I'm good, okay, more than okay, great. Is Mother near you by chance? Thanks."

Amy watched with intrigue as Rose spoke to someone on the phone that she referred to as _Mother_ and advised of the situation occurring ahead of them. Although quite obviously in pain with a migraine-strength headache, Rose was smiling as she listened to the woman on the other end.

"Just whose mother are you talking to," she asked with mirth. "Please tell me something I want to hear. Please please please." There was no shield over the glee in her voice.

Rose winked at Amy and politely asked the person on the phone to wait a moment. She took hold of Amy's hand and walked them toward the warring brothers. She held the phone in between them. "Gentlemen. Phone call."

Ten looked to her with annoyed apology. "Sorry. For who?"

Rose lightly shook the phone. "Either, or. Take your pick." She poked it at Ten. "You might want to go first."

"Can I call them back, I'm a bit busy right now."

She shook her head. "I really wouldn't recommend that." She smiled warmly to Eleven as Ten took the phone. "Hello again, Doctor."

He snatched her in for a hug and kissed atop her head. "Always good to see you, Rose."

Rose nestled against his side as she watched her new husband hold the phone to his ear and give a rather chirpy greeting.

"Grand morning to you, you've reached the Doctor." He paused. "Oh. Yes. Hello to you, too." His head dropped and the volume of his voice decreased to quiet mumble. "Okay. Yes. Understood. But…" Another pause. "Oh, but. He was…" Another pause. A mild whimper. "I really didn't consider that, no. I will fix that. Immediately." He slouched with a heavy backward lean. "If I must. Yes. Yes. I am in full agreement with you, of course. I am not in any way arguing with you." He palmed at his forehead and spoke though his teeth. "It is my oath to you. I will respect and… No, I am not being facetious." Another wince. "Yes. And the same to you, of course."

His hand still covered his forehead as he handed the phone across the void between the two men. "It's for you."

Eleven flicked a brow and looked down to Rose as he took the phone from his brother. "It's Jackie, isn't it?"

Rose shook her head as she pulled away from him and slid happily into Ten's waiting arms. "Worse," she sang. She looked to Amy, who was highly amused as she filmed the scene with her cellphone. "You getting this, Amy?"

"All of it," she said with a laugh as she watched her Doctor go through a very similar conversation, in very much the same defeated manner as his brother had. "This is going into the TARDIS databanks for play at random points in time as soon as I get back on board."

Eleven finally ended the call and pressed the top of the phone against his forehead as he bit down his embarrassment. He lifted only his eyes to Rose. "You called our _Mother_?"

She nodded with a very neutral expression. "Yes. I did."

"The question of just _how_ you have her contact details is curious, but can wait until another date," he muttered around the clearing of his throat. "Let me state, for the record, in front of all present, that _that _was a low down and dirty tactic."

"But you still love me, right?"

"With _that_ stroke of genius," Eleven said with pride and a grin. "Of course I do. Very well played."

Ten held his new wife with a tender hold against his chest and pressed his lips gently into her forehead. "I heard from a rather insistent Time Lady that you need a Doctor." He rubbed her back used the push of his nose to bring her head from his so that he could look into her tired face. "Let me do something about that headache of yours."

He lifted her chin with the crook of his finger and lightly pressed his mouth to hers. With a single roll of his jaw to part her lips below his, he languidly drank her in. Within a moment, she dissolved into his arms with a sigh and whimper. He had a rather self-satisfied smile on his face when he drew back from her. "How's that; all better?"

"Oh yes," she breathed on a sigh. "You are a gifted man."

"Not so much gifted," River Song offered as she took position next to eleven and nudged him with her hip to break him of his trance of watching the couple become tender with each other. "Don't stare, sweetie." She looked back to Rose. "Telepathic bonding can cause some temporal sensation feedback between the bonded couple in its early stages. He just needed to calm himself down to ease your pain. What better way than with a kiss?" Her smile was genuine. "It will get better for you in time. How long has it been?"

Ten's face creased as he considered the timing. "About an hour, actually."

All four persons gasped. River Song, however, was the most aghast of the group.

"An _hour_?" She looked back to the group with wide eyes and shook her head. "Which means the union hasn't yet been consummated, am I correct?" She made a shoo motion toward the TARDIS. "Off you go. We'll still be here when you're finished."

"Well that's a bit personal," Rose chipped. "And I don't really know you yet, so…"

"Does consummation prior to the bonding ceremony count," Ten tried with a high browed look. "Because about two hours before hand Rose and I…" He oomphed as Rose slapped him in the stomach.

"_Really_, Doctor?"

"Are you embarrassed to admit that you make love with me, Rose," he teased lightly. "I would certainly hope not considering it's something we engage in rather frequently."

She covered her face with her hands. "Oh. I'm not having this discussion. Not now. Not here. Not ever." She blindly walked toward the TARDIS with a whimper in her tone. "What is it with Time Lords and their lack of decorum in mixed company?"

He held a wide grin of tease as he followed behind her. "Welcome to the species," he said with a laugh as he passed through the door. He hooked his hand around the door as he peered around it to the group on the other side. "Yeah. We're going to need a couple of hours, maybe three."

"We'll be waiting, Sweetie," River Song called back. "Have fun."

"Will do," he promised. He then passed a look to Eleven. "There is a specific reason I called you out here, Brother. Please don't take off on me."

He pressed his lips together and shook his head. "It's been a while since I've taken a couple of days to relax and do nothing." He looked around. "I think I can manage some downtime here for a while. I miss this place." He tipped his head to his entourage. "And something tells me this lot would appreciate the time, too."

"You got that right," Amy purred as she put her hand on the Doctor's shoulder. "It'll be nice to just put the feet up and relax a while."

Rory whimpered behind her. "Of course, now that you've said that," he warned. "Something's gonna happen."

Ten's laugh at Rory's comment as he closed the TARDIS doors was as ominous as the storm clouds coming in over the lake. Eleven looked up to the sky. "Well. Let's go inside and I'll give you a tour of the Summer home of two very spoiled and entitled Time Lord brats."

"Nooo," Amy sang facetiously as she followed him upstairs. "Spoiled and entitled brat? You? Never."


	29. Breakfast

A/N: I watched a youtube video of David Tennant being bloody hilarious … Part of this was born of that. Other than that. Still fluff, but moving toward something.

~~oooOOOooo~~

The storm had raged late into the evening with high winds, heavy rain, bright blue flashes of lightning and heavy rumbling crashes of thunder. The old Stone and wood home shielded the sounds of the wind and thunder from the occupants nestled warmly within. The corrugated tin and copper roof caught each rain droplet loudly, providing the Eleventh Doctor and his companion team with a brilliant symphony of tinkering song, punctuated by the percussion of the thunder outside.

Like anything that came from the constellation of Kasterborous, it was a beautiful display. The young married couple of Amy and Rory nestled a romantic cuddle against each other on the padded seat of the bay window to watch the lightning dancing across the lake, and the glitter of the silver leaves lining the old home. River Song and the Doctor remained on the floor in front of the fire, sipping on vintage wine procured from the cellar, and spoke of the escapades of a young Doctor running through the Summer property.

Amy had offered some concern about the couple outside in the TARDIS, but had been quickly assured that the machines outside were far more equipped to deal with a heavy storm than the home was, so she was not to worry. She couldn't help slight concern, however, and let her eyes wander toward both machines more than once. Late into the evening she could have sworn to have seen both Rose and the Doctor dancing romantically in the rain, holding each other, sharing tender kisses, but put that image down to supreme tiredness. She fell asleep against her husband shortly thereafter. She awoke in the deep cushions of the Bay window wrapped around Rory, and covered in a thick fluffy blanket.

The Doctor stood beside the slowly stirring couple with a mug of tea in his hand and his eyes looking out into the bright morning sunshine.

"Good morning, Amy," he offered lightly. "Sleep well?"

She slapped her lips together to try and wet her dry tongue and the roof of her mouth, and held her hand out in request to take a sip of his tea. He obliged, and she took a tentative taste, a deeper sip, and then handed it back. "Normally I don't like storms," she admitted on a croaking and still sleepy voice. "But last night. That was something else. Gorgeous."

"It was," he agreed as he drew back on his tea and kept his eyes on the two TARDIS machines.

She noticed his intense stare and pulled herself from the seat to pad her socked feet on the wooden floor. "What's the time?"

"In Earth equivalent, about eight-thirty in the morning." Another draw on his tea. "The days are slightly shorter here – about twenty hours instead of the twenty-four that you're familiar with."

"Ten of day, ten of night?"

He shook his head. "Thirteen hours of sunlight. One for Dusk, one for Dawn, Four hours of night." He shrugged. "On average."

"Perfect for Time Lords that don't sleep, I guess." She tipped her shoulder to the TARDIS. "Any sign of them, yet?"

He nodded. "They went for a walk a couple of hours ago. The Doctor wanted to take Rose into town to pick up something at the bakery for breakfast."

She gasped. "It's a two-hour trip?"

The Doctor gave a laugh. "No. It's only a twenty minute walk." He passed her an amused glance. "But what's one thing you know about me?"

"That a ten minute trip for supplies can typically take up to a whole day to complete." She rolled her eyes with a smile and bobbed her head lightly from side to side. "Distracted by this, want to look at that. And, oh! Look at this _brilliant_ piece of alien stuff whose origin absolutely must be much more closely investigated…"

"Exactly," he said with amused softness as he dipped his head down closer to her ear. "And as he and I are essentially the same man, we can assume that he's been distracted by something."

"Or he's conducting a very thorough history lesson and is boring her senseless as he describes just what planet the dust on the brick wall is from and the most _brilliant_ industrial processes that were required to fashion this dust into a strong and sturdy building brick."

"Are you saying that I bore you, Amelia Pond?"

"Oh," she sang lightly. "You do have your less interesting moments."

His face lengthened in mild hurt as he followed Amy to the door that led to the front patio. He leaned his forearms on the railing beside her and cradled his mug between both hands. He closed his eyes with a serene smile as the warm winds kissed at the side of his face and tousled his hair. "Why haven't I been back here," he asked Amy with rhetoric softness. "I've always loved it here. I've always felt safe here."

"Memories," she suggested with equal softness. "You're always running, Doctor. Running. Running. Coming here means that you stop for a while."

"And when I stop running…"

"You start thinking. Remembering. Feeling."

He let out a long breath and slid his eyes in her direction. "You know me so well. So intricately. So deeply that I find it terrifying at times, Amy Pond."

She nudged him with her shoulder. "I'm your best friend," she teased cautiously. "I'm supposed to know you."

He took her hand and squeezed it tightly. "That knowledge is power. You can hurt me deeply, so please don't."

She looked up the dusty road, where the pair of Doctor and Rose walked hand in hand toward the home. "Did she hurt you?"

He followed her gaze and spared a moment to watch the couple walk and laugh together in the distance. "No. Rose didn't hurt me. _I_ hurt me. I forgot who I was. I ignored centuries of conditioning, of instinct. I ignored my better judgment and fell in love."

"It happens to the best of us," she offered. "It's really something you can't fight against. It just happens." She nodded her chin to the lake, where River Song was taking a swim. "And sometimes you should stop fighting it and let it happen."

He looked to the lake. "Perhaps."

They both watched quietly as Rose and the Doctor shared a joke on the path. The Doctor Ten dropped his head backward and dipped his knees in a deep and open-mouthed laugh as Rose broke away from him and clutched at her belly in her own laughter.

"He looks like a happy fellow,' Amy offered. "Was that _you_ back then, too?"

"Are you suggesting I'm a miserable old man now?"

"Nope," she said with a smile and a nudge against his shoulder with hers. "But he seems a little lighter than you are."

"That man." He indicated Ten with a nod of his head. "Was the most unstable of all my regenerations. Highly volatile. He can switch his mood and personality inside a second. Bright and cheery one moment, and in full storm mode the next second without warning. She." He flicked his hand in Rose's direction. "Rose's presence held him in check. She didn't know it, and certainly wasn't actively trying to, but she was like medication to him." He blew out a breath. "She grounded him. When he lost her, _well_."

"When _you_ lost her," she corrected. "It had to be tough."

"It was. Until Donna." He smiled. "Donna is something to be seen," he said with bright remembrance. "I think you'd like her." He gave her a teasing stare. "There's something about you fiery ginger girls that know how to keep a Time Lord honest."

"I'd be offended if I didn't completely agree with you." She tilted her head at the pair nearing the gate. "What is he doing?"

The Doctor's eyes widened for a second as he watched his brother sucking on the stalk of a flower as he dropped to pluck another from the path and hand it to Rose in urging. He then chuckled in amusement. "Oh. This will be entertaining."

"Why's that?"

"Oh. Just watch."

He thumbed at his nose in amusement to watch Rose follow her Doctor's direction and lick at the stalk with heavy caution. Immediately, she recoiled with a disgusted look on her face. Ten hovered his face, wearing a thrilled expression, as the disgust on Rose's face quickly changed to delight, and she snatched the flower from him to suck on its stalk. Both Rose and the Doctor stood facing each other with a five-petal brilliant red flower hanging out from their lips like a baby's pacifier.

And then they started to giggle goofily.

"Oh-kay," Amy breathed long. "Is that like a Time Lord mushroom trip or somethin'?"

The Doctor shook his head. "Closer to being drunk than on a _trip,_" he assured. "That flower is native to Mount Cadon on Gallifrey. Students at the Prydonian Chapter of the Academy chew on the end of the stalk when they want to relax after a hard day of study."

"Time Lords in training on drugs," she mused. "Well that explains the whole _how do I fly this thing and get to the right time and date I want_ quandary on the TARDIS. You were high for the whole time at University! College students are the same on any planet, aren't they?"

"No. It's not a drug," he countered with a laugh. "It's got an enzyme in the sap has an effect on Time Lords very similar to alcohol on humans. Granted," he admitted. "It's slightly more potent that your Earth-produced beverages, but the effect is very short less than a minute once you stop tasting the sap, and it has no ill after effect. Non addicting." He watched the pair on the ground with amusement. "It's really no more harmful to a Time Lord than a night out at the bar is to a Human."

"A night out on the town isn't always harmless."

Amy paused and giggled into her hand as Rose took the flower from her mouth and walked a staggered gait toward her Doctor. Rose was all chuckles as she rolled up onto her toes and poked the stem of the flower into the Doctor's spiked hair. She pulled the one from his mouth, and tucked it behind his ear.

"Oh how very dignified," Amy giggled. Her giggle increased to a hearty laugh as Rose stepped backward to take a photograph with her phone of the flower-powered Doctor. Ten performed a couple of typical effeminate model poses, but then pursed his lips in teenage duck-face style and leaned his chest forward and pressed his hands against the lapel of his jacket as though he was a well-endowed woman pushing her breasts together for that perfect cleavage shot. When he held that pose and licked seductively at his lips, Rose exploded in laughter. She stomped her feet in brilliant glee as she walked a tight circle around herself and had her head held high as she struggled to breathe in her amusement.

"I want a copy of that picture," Amy called from the deck.

Rose and Ten looked up to the deck with smiled spread wide across their cheeks. Ten held up a box held together with red ribbon. "Mornin'. Sleep well, Ms. Pond? Look. I got breakfast. Best bakery in Kasterborous!"

"What took you so long," Eleven charged with mock annoyance. "A Time Lord could starve waiting for you to get your act together."

"Well you've got legs and two heartbeats," he countered with a cheeky wink. "You could always fix yourself something."

Eleven snatched the box from his brother and passed it to Amy. "But I was given the promise of Fresh bread and Bagels." He looked at his watch. "Two hours ago."

"Oh," Ten countered excitedly as he pulled a glittering stone from his jacket pocket and held it up to show Eleven. "But look what Rose found in the Market. It's an Eruvien deep lake nursery pod. Petrified, of course. But isn't it beautiful?"

Eleven slipped on his glasses and took the prize from Ten's hand. "That's very lovely," he commented as he held it to the light. Impressed though he was, he couldn't help but dip his head with mild concern. "This's thousands of years old." He looked up sharply. "Where did Rose find this? In the market?"

"Yes," Ten answered with a grin as he rocked on his feet. He lowered his head in an excited, yet conspiratorial manner. "So I had to look into it, didn't I? Find out where it came from. See if there are any more."

Rose rolled her eyes, took the box from Ten and flicked her head to the doorway. "C'mon, Amy. Let's you 'n me go play good housewives and fix the lads some breakfast and tea, shall we?"

"They can make it themselves," she challenged with a brattish look toward her Doctor.

"I've already heard all this. At. Great. Length," Rose warned in a friendly tone with a point to the current object of the Doctors' desire. "Of course you're welcome to the lecture a'la Docteurs if you wish."

"Coming," Amy yelped. She grabbed Rose's hand and tugged. "Breakfast for our men. Yes. We can do that."

The two Doctors merely raised their eyes to the girls as they hightailed it off the deck. Ten pursed his lips and raised his brows. "Do you ever get the feeling that…" He frowned. "Well. You know." His eyes moved back to his brother. "That sometimes the girls aren't as excited about things as we are?"

"Oh absolutely not," He answered. "How can they not be completely fascinated by things like this. And this. Is. Very. Beautiful," Eleven breathed with his eyes still caught on the pod. They shifted to Ten. "We have to return this to the Eruvien Royal Family."

"Yeah," Ten agreed as he scratched his sideburn. "Gonna leave that one to you. Rose and me, we have some important things to deal with after we're done here."

Eleven stuffed the pod into his pocket and leaned his forearm on the railing. "I have been meaning to ask you about why we're all here." He looked to the lake, where River Song was still swimming. "And why you'd specifically ask for her to come along."

"Because we need Time Lords that we can trust." He swallowed and looked slightly uncomfortable as he continued. "Rose. Well I trust her with my life."

"She now holds our greatest secret, so I would hope so."

"Which," Ten continued. "Leads me to River." He smiled thinly. "She holds the same secret, which means you trust her – or you will at some point. I will guess it means that you will also love her," he shrugged. "If you don't already, of course. Trust her, I mean."

"To be perfectly honest with you, Brother. I don't know if I do."

"Well that was unexpected," Ten murmured with genuine shock. "Do you mind sharing just why?"

"I don't know."

A flat and simple response.

Ten drummed his fingers on the railing. "So we _don't_ trust her?"

"Well on one hand I do," Eleven muttered with a wave of his hand. "But on the other hand I don't know."

"Oh-kay," Ten said on a long breath. "If I was to entrust the care of my Rose Tyler to River Song, would she be safe?"

"Why would you want to do that, and yes. Rose would be very well protected." His brows dropped low, as did his head. "What is on your mind? What are we doing?"

"Something for our Mother," Ten answered flatly. "When I left Torchwood, she made a very specific request."

"Which tone of voice did she use?"

"_That_ tone of voice."

"The one that holds a suggestion, mild humour perhaps, but that undercurrent of command with a side order of unspoken threat of severe reprimand if you don't do what it is that she jokingly asked you to do?"

"That would be the one."

"Oh Rassilon, we're in trouble." He rubbed his hands together and rocked his head lightly from side to side as he considered things. "What does she need?"

"Our father," Ten answered simply. She is in exile on Pete's world on Rassilon's command – her crime, I add, I would like an explanation for."

"Long story. Involved the Master, Time Lords, Gallifrey, Rassilon, Mother, my regeneration."

"Oh," Ten sang with a big smile. "Sounds like my day yesterday. _Well_, but without the Master and Gallifrey, but I had Bad Wolf and Borusa in their place."

"My day. Far worse."

"Are we really going to have another pissing contest?"

"_Pissing_, Doctor? Very Uncouth of you." He toyed with his now empty mug. "Now. Before your wife phones our Mother to intervene once more. Share with me your plan to retrieve our father."

Ten adopted the same level of lean on his elbows against the railing as his brother. "We have to get into Mount Cadon."

"No," Eleven snapped quickly.

"The information on Dad's whereabouts and how we're going to get to him are in there."

Eleven pursed his lips and nodded. He kept his head low and raised his eyes to his brother. "So. What you're saying is that you want you and me to go back in time to a living Gallifrey and walk the halls of our alma mater and hope that we aren't recognized by any of the cadets or professors so we can steal the information required to break our father out of prison." He blew out a breath. "Because our Mother asked us to."

"Yes." Ten then uncomfortably curled his lip and cleared his throat. "Of course, you and I would be instantly recognized as rather infamous members of the alumni."

"Well. Yes."

Ten nodded and pulled at his ear. "And only Time Lords can attend the Academy." He pressed his fist into the side of his mouth, forcing him to talk around it. "We do _know_ two other Time Lords."

"Are you insane?"

"I believe I have a certificate to that effect somewhere."

"You're actually _willing_ to allow Rose to step on the hallowed grounds of the Cadon Campus. You? _You_?"

He nodded. "Yes. Rose _and_ River." He rolled his eyes. "Oh come on. It's just the Academy. I'm not sending them to Council Chambers or Arcadia."

Eleven rubbed at his chin. "Yes. Well. They would make quite a combination against the pretentious Prydonian Chapter cadets." He grinned a smile as floppy as his hair. "And you'd want to miss seeing that?"

"He's nameless you know."

"I know he is."

"This is the only way we can find him. We have to take the risk."

"All because Mother said so." He punched lightly at his forehead. Again. Again. Again. Finally he raised his head and shrugged. "Well. What choice do we have? Which is worse, really? Having to answer to the Council of Lords and risk a lifetime exile to Trenzalore or deny our Mother?"

"Dad's in prison for asking that same question."

"And getting the same answer."


	30. Friendly Advice

A/N: River Song. Right. Let me say right off the bat that I am not a huge fan of hers**. But, I will never, ever, bash her or belittle her as a character.** She is strong – very strong - in her own right, but I get bugged by the way she is so condescending toward the Doctor. If you love someone, you don't treat them like that… So with that, if you are in any way expecting that anything I write will give her a Puppy!Doctor in love … nope … Not ever going to happen.

Now. Let us wander into this chapter with the above in mind, shall we. While Rose may have something to _suggest_ to River, it doesn't really mean anything. Okay?

_~~oooOOOooo~~_

Amy, River Song, and the Eleventh Doctor were seated on the stairs outside the home when a panicked blonde lightning bolt struck down from the front door. As she shot past, Rose immediately clutched at Amy's hand and tugged desperately.

"AmyAmyAmy! Comecomecome," she pleaded.

Amy was pulled from her comfortable seat beside the Doctor. She stumbled with a yelp, and clutched onto the Doctor's knee to stop her from falling forward completely onto her face. She gasped to find herself pulled on one side by Rose, both hands clutching hers, and attached to the Doctor on the other side, both by knee and by his hand grabbing at hers. "What? What's going on?"

Rose danced from foot to foot, her eyes flashing up to the front doorway with panicked alarm. "Just. You. Me. We need to go be girlie or something, yeah?" She tugged. "Please?"

"Why so urgent?" She smiled, though. "But yeah, sounds good. I'm in!"

"Great! Now?" She stuttered. "Uh. Allons-y?"

"Allon-what?" She looked at the Doctor for explanation.

"I don't say _Allons-y_ anymore," he advised Rose. "It's _Geronimo _now," Eleven said on a low chuckle.

"Geronimo? Who says Geronimo?"

"Geronimo is _cool_," he answered with a slow grin. He raised his head and twisted his body to look over his shoulder at the sound of Ten calling for his wife. "Oh. Rose. What did you do?"

"Nothing," she growled lightly. She then yelped and released Amy to duck down beside the stairwell. She ducked, but pressed her back into the wall. "You haven't seen me, okay?"

Ten stepped out through the door, ducking through the doorway although unnecessary. "Hey, bowtie. Did you see Rose come out here?"

Eleven's brow flicked and he licked a teasing tongue over his lip as he passed a look to Rose, who was actually cowering as through hiding from a Dalek. "Well…"

She offered him her most wounded, pleading, desperate look; the one she knew for a damn fact he couldn't ever resist. "I will love you for all eternity, just, please?"

"Well, what?" Ten asked as he moved toward the group. "Did you see her or not?"

Eleven broke from the tractor beam lock of hazel eyes and looked to his brother. "Well, no. Not recently. I thought she was with you, exploring the old homestead."

He scratched at his sideburn, and then tugged on his ear. "Yeah. She was. But then I stumbled into the old nursery, found some really cool stuff." He shrugged. "I turned around and she was gone."

"Is there a travel portal somewhere in there?" He asked with a teasing snicker.

"Oh, so I'm a comedian in my next regeneration, yeah?"

"You might want to go look for her then," Eleven suggested sharply. "Our most jeopardy-friendly Rose Tyler just might find herself in some strife if we leave her alone for too long." He extended his neck to look at what the Doctor held in his hand. His eyes widened in thrill. "Oh. Is that?"

Ten looked down to his hand, and then held the item up to show his brother. His smile was wide, toothy, and quite possibly reached out to both ears. "Oh yes. It is!"

He launched from his seat on the stairs, with thrill in his eyes, and met his brother on the main deck of the home. The three women watched with wide eyes and high brows to see two very grown and typically very distinguished Time Lords excitedly fussing over what looked to be a child's toy.

River Song looked on with cautious surprise at the regression into childhood of both men. "Did you happen to stick around long enough to find out what that thing is, Rose?"

"It was in the old nursery, and so I am going to assume that it's a toy," she suddenly clutched onto River's hand and tugged her down to a crouch. "Duck," she belched as she snapped her hand forward to pull Amy down as well. "I was there long enough to know that it does _this_."

The three of them managed to get out of the way fast enough to avoid a hot and blue laser streak blasting just up over their heads. There was a boisterous cheer from Ten as a trinkling of silver leaves shattered out of the tree and onto both TARDIS machines.

"Ha!"

Amy spluttered in her crouch. "_That's_ a _child's toy_?"

"That surprises you," River said with a roll of her eyes. "These guys? I wouldn't be surprised if their parents had them playing with roentgen bricks and …"

"There was a decent wall of those very bricks in the nursery, actually," Rose interrupted as another shot blasted over their heads, this one at the hands of Eleven. "Let's get out of here before the two of them completely obliterate this place." She tugged at Amy's hand and looked curiously to River. "Are you coming with us, or are you going to stay here and play with the boys and their toys?"

"While the prospect of being alone with two very handsome Doctors is very attractive," River answered with a purr. She let the pause hang slightly and then shrugged a coy shoulder. "I think it might be a nice idea to explore this beautiful countryside with a couple of ladies."

"And make sure we don't get into trouble, yeah?" Rose offered with a high brow. She passed a look to Amy, who seemed to hold the same question in her mind.

"The Doctor might have suggested that if either of you wander it may be a good idea for me to come along." She held up her hands defensively. "Not that I believe for a moment that either of you are unable to come to your own defense if necessary." She petted her hip. "But I am always carrying, whereas you aren't."

"Which Doctor," Amy queried as they all fell into step, three-girls-across, along the dusty path.

"_My_ Doctor," she answered with a purr. She looked past Amy to Rose. "I don't believe that your version of the Doctor has full trust in me as yet to assign your protection to me."

"Oh," Rose sang somewhat annoyed. "_My_ version of the Doctor knows that I'm good to take care of myself. I've been working with Torchwood for almost four years chasing down aliens and robots and scary stuff." She chuckled lightly. "And let's not forget that I'm also Bad Wolf," she said with a playful huff and puff and a scratch in the air ahead of her.

"What's Bad Wolf," Amy queried softly.

"If Rose is referring to what I think she is, then I believe the texts suggest that the Wolf is a being that is hidden, woven into the fabric of time. She holds the universes greatest and most dangerous secret, and is the fierce protector of the Storm," River Song answered very slowly. "But that's just a fairy tale, Rose."

"Well," she said with a high shrug. "Depends who you speak to, and then how you interpret it. You're an archaeologist and a scholar," Rose offered in a friendly tone as she tucked her hair behind her ear. "You know that all ancient tales are twisted from some form of the truth."

"That's true," River acquiesced with a nod of her head. "And do you believe that you're the wolf of lore?"

Rose immediately spat out a breath of laughter. "Not a bloody word of it. But," she said softly. "Rassilon apparently does, and that means so does the Doctor."

"Really?" The tone was doubtful.

"Yes. Really."

"And how do you know that Rassilon believes this?"

Rose paused in her step for a moment. Her head tilted down as she wondered just how much she should say to a woman that she barely knew. Finally she angled her head downward and shot a cryptic smile toward the other blonde in the party. "Spoilers."

"Ooh," Amy laughed darkly. "That must burn to have that one thrown right back atcha."

"It's not entirely pleasant," River admitted with a laugh. "So touche, Rose Tyler."

"What is this whole Bad Wolf thing," Amy asked with friendly curiosity. "I've heard about it here and there. The Doctor bristles when he hears or sees the name."

"Oh," Rose answered as her eyes flared momentarily in remembrance. "Wow. It goes back, actually, to the Doctor's ninth regeneration."

"You've known him for _that _long," River queried.

"It's not really as long as it seems," Rose said with a shrug. "I only spent two years with him before I got trapped in the other parallel. Then two years apart, less than 12 hours back together, and I was left – once again – in the parallel world, but this time with my Doctor."

"Who our Doctor believed was human."

"Something like that." She pulled her hair back from her face. "So. Anyway. We were trapped, Me, the Doctor and Captain Jack, on a satellite orbiting earth in the year 200,100. We were facing down an entire Dalek Battle fleet, and the Doctor was trying to create a delta wave to kill them all. He must've worked out that it wasn't going to work out, and so he tricked me into going into the TARDIS so he could send me back to earth." Her face tightened up. "Oh. I was so mad at him. So mad."

"Are you saying that he gave you his TARDIS; his only escape?" Amy smiled a swoon. "And he made sure that he sent you home safe. Oh," she breathed. "That's so romantic."

Rose shook her head. "The Doctor and romance don't belong on the same page, let alone the same sentence. He was just fulfilling a promise he made to my Mum that he would always protect and keep me safe."

"I've always found the Doctor to be very romantic," River offered with her own kind of swooning smile. "Very."

Rose's eyes were wide and her brows high. "Lucky you. I guess his current regeneration got the romancing lady killer personality." Her brow flicked in tease. "Where as my version got the meow hot baby hot."

Amy nodded. "I've kind of got to agree with her on that, River. By comparison, he's very, very good looking." She bumped Rose with her hip. "So. Go on."

"Oh. Yes." She skipped lightly. "So. Here I was, back at the Powel Estate all pissed off and upset that he would send me home while he was fighting for his life, and for the life of Earth." She spun to stand ahead of the trio and walked backwards. "So, all this time, yeah. All this time the Doctor and me had been seeing the words _Bad Wolf_ everywhere. All across time and space we kept seeing these words. We thought it was a warning.".

Amy was enthralled. "Yeah, and?"

"Well. I was walking with my ex, Mickey, and I began to see those words again. Everywhere. All around me. And that's when I worked out that it was a sign, not a warning. It was a message telling me that I could get back to him."

"Why couldn't you just fly the TARDIS back?" River asked with a raised brow. "That's what I would have done."

"Well, I can't fly a TARDIS, can I? He's never taught me." Rose muttered with a slight brattish manner. "And he had it set to Security Protocol One, which means even if I could pilot her, the TARDIS wouldn't respond. She was sent away to die, and she knew it."

Amy was close to requiring popcorn and a blanket to snuggle into to keep hearing the story. "So how'd you get back?"

"Well," Rose began with a laugh. "I tore apart the TARDIS, didn't I?"

"How the hell did you do that?"

"With a tow truck," Rose said with a laugh. "When we couldn't do it with Mickey's mini, Mum got us rescue truck. We hooked it up to the console, and Mickey dropped the accelerator. Bob's your Uncle, it ripped open the console." She licked at her lip, noticing the two shocked pairs of eyes staring at her. Her excitement quelled a little. "So that's when I looked into the heart of the TARDIS. I looked into her, and she looked into me."

"You looked into the Vortex, Rose?" River spat in shock. "You can't do that! Not even the Time Lords can do that."

"I didn't just look into it," she argued softly. "I absorbed it. The whole thing. The TARDIS and I, we were one for five wonderful minutes. She took me back to the Doctor, and I saved him from the Daleks. With a wave of my hand, I destroyed the entire fleet. Half a million Daleks, and their emperor, reduced to dust at my hand."

"Wow," Amy breathed. "And?"

"Yes," River added curiously. "How did you get rid of the Vortex power to be standing here with us today?" Her eyes widened. "Is that how you became Time Lord?"

"Yes and no, River," she began. "Most of the power was taken from me by the Doctor." She smiled a wistful smile as she recalled their first kiss. "I was in so much pain. My head hurt. I was burning up. And he said the most cheesy thing to me. _C'mere. I think you need a Doctor_." She paused at a giggle from Amy. "And then he kissed me. Our first kiss. So gentle, so soft, but so passionate at the same time." She blinked back a tear as she looked toward Amy and River. "He took the power from me, to save me, but it killed him. He regenerated right in front of me on the TARDIS. He became, well. My Doctor."

"And you say he isn't romantic," Amy challenged. "He _died_ for you, Rose. That's right up there on top of the romantic things to do list."

She smiled a lightly wet smile. "He also burned up a sun just to say good bye to me when we got separated across the walls of the universe."

Amy couldn't help it. Not at all. At that admission, she had to go _girl_ and launch a hug around Rose. "That's love," she breathed into her ear. "Real love, Rose." She backed off just a slight, and gripped lightly at her upper arms. "We are lucky girls, you and me. Our men are such romantics. Rory waited two-thousand years for me."

Rose hooked her arm through Amy's. "Okay. I shared my story, now you tell me yours. Tell me how that adorable husband of yours waited two thousand years for you."

River wore a frown as she slowed her walk and watched the two young women walk arm in arm down the road. Here were two women with two very different men desperately in love with them – one of them holding the four hearts of two men – and she was still struggling to make the man she loved, the one she was married to in her timeline, take notice of her.

As Amy's story drew to a close, and Rose whimpered in a romance-novel-swoon in response, River dared approach the subject.

"Can I ask you both something," she ventured quietly. "I suppose this question is more directed to Rose than Amy, but you," she indicated Amy. "You know him better than Rose in this regeneration."

Rose and Amy shared a look, but were intrigued.

"Sure," Rose answered with a flick of her hand to ask River to walk with them. "What's on your mind? Do you have a tale of romance with our Doctor in a Bowtie to share?"

"I can only wish," she answered on a sigh.

"I thought you said that he was romantic."

She nodded. "In the future, yes. He takes me on romantic evenings and shares much of himself with me."

"But," Amy hazarded. "I sense a _but_ in there."

"I know what the but is," Rose offered. "You're having a problem getting him close to where you are in your future, and it has you worried that your marriage is one of those flux lines instead of a fixed point." She caught River's sudden look. "The Doctor told me about you a long time ago. About two months after we landed at Bad Wolf Bay. We kind of got into a mild argument about it, actually. Jealous me and all that."

Amy laughed. "Bad Wolf Bay? Really? Spoooky," she sang in a haunted voice.

"So you knew that the Doctor and I are married in a future time line?"

She nodded. "Yes, I do. But I shouldn't, and he certainly shouldn't have known."

"I had no choice," she defended. "It was a life or death moment, and I had to tell him."

"Think hard on that, River. Think really hard," she urged. "From the moment you saw him, and he clearly didn't know who you were, you should have left it alone. There was always another way. He would have helped you no matter what, because that's who he is. But you pushed, and you pushed, and you pushed." She let out a breath and inhaled deeply. "And you've been pushing ever since, haven't you?"

"I love him."

"Then let him fall in love with you," she snapped. "Let the Doctor fall in love, not be told he has to be in love."

"Well, you have to admit that it's difficult to be his new lover when his old one is around reminding him of what he gave up."

"Don't blame my presence on his aloof behavior. Sure we flirt, we always did. I love him. I always will, but I'm bonded to and desperately in love with his brother. I'm not looking to pick up where we left off." She put her arm on River's wrist in a gentle gesture. "Are you lovers, right here, right now. In both of your time lines, right at this very moment, are you in love with each other?"

River Song remained quiet, her eyes misted. "No. It's still very one-sided."

"Well. Do you want my advice?" She gave a genuine smile. "From my own observations, of course."

"Sure. I'm listening," she said dryly.

"Stop cornering him. Stop with the _Sweetie_ and _my love _sentiments all the time. " She looked with honesty to the older woman. "The Doctor. He needs to make that decision on his own. You're not giving him that. You're forcing it on him and telling him his future like he has no choice at all. He's a Time Lord, remember. He won't change his own timeline. If you're telling him this is it, that you and he are destiny, then you've taken his choice away. Taken away the thrill of falling for each other."

Her head dropped. "I can see what you're saying."

"Obviously you're married in the future. Clearly he loves you. Maybe he loves you more than he ever loved me. Who knows." She shrugged. "But for now, stop pushing it. All you're going to do is push him away." She smiled then and wrapped around River's arm tightly. "He loves so hard, River, so passionately. He'll fall, crash, and burn for you, and when he does, all the tears of frustration you cried are going to be so worth it. But you have to let him take that leap on his own. Ease up. Be there when he needs you, and back off when he needs his space."

"That was what you did?"

"Oh hell no," she laughed. "That daft alien idiot kept sending me away, and I kept on coming back. I was an annoying little mosquito he had to swat away all the time." She playfully swatted the air to illustrate her point. "Eventually he realized that he would be stuck with me. So he created a biological meta crisis version of himself and handed him over. In cahoots with the Daleks, too, I say. So meticulously planned – little shit."

Amy gasped with wide eyes as she dramatically covered her mouth. "Oh. You're right! He doesn't go into anything without a plan."

"Well most of the time, yeah, he does, but…" She had to laugh. "How's that for a strategic session in the briefing room? The Doctor, the Daleks, gathered around the big round boardroom desk surrounded by computer screens and papers as they finalize the ultimate plan to get rid of that annoying human girl who is all doe-eyed at him and – oh gasp – even told him that she loved him!"

River Song shook her head. "You two. Really."

"I hate the Daleks," Rose admitted in a sobering voice. "Everything devastating that's happened to him, to me, to us, always involves a bloody Dalek."

Rose was still walking and muttering about her dislike of Daleks as she collided with Amy's back. She squeaked slightly with surprise and urged Amy to walk forward with a light nudge of her shoulder. "You okay, Amy?"

Amy's face was lengthened in horror and her mouth slightly gaped as she looked into a small village ahead of them. She shook her head. "Rose. River. Um. I think we need the Doctors."

River and Rose followed Amy's gaze and both let out identical gasps of horror to the scene ahead of them. The small medieval style village nestled beside a forested swampland was deserted of people, quiet, eerie. Fires still burned in small firepits, with food still cooking in large pots over the fire. Chickens and sheep lumbered about, scratching in the streets, or nuzzling though bags of food.

Slightly beyond the village limits, to where the forest and swamp began, the trees buckled. Shattered and splintered trunks, black and singed, gated around a large, golden ship buried in the swamp and caged by fallen trees.

Rose hitched a breath. She knew exactly what she was looking at. "Now we know where last night's storm came from," she admitted with a gulp. "Atmospheric disturbance."

"Oh the Doctors aren't going to be happy," Amy whined. "They were finally relaxing."

The grin on River's face was one of thrill as she pulled her gun from her thigh holster. "Then we don't tell them, do we?"

Rose shot her a look of query. "What are you saying?"

"You work for Torchwood," River challenged as she threw her another sidearm. "How many times have you gone in without your Doctor at your side."

"Oh. No. You can't suggest that with a straight face, River. That'll make him more pissed off than if we do tell him." She slouched. "And I really don't like him when he gets all Oncoming Storm in my direction."

"Oh," River sang. "Live a little, Rose." She dipped her head in between the two ladies. "Let's have some fun. go in there, bang boom pop, and be home in time for dinner."

"I wouldn't consider a Dalek scout craft to be a tin can full of happy happy joy joy," Rose countered. But she shrugged. "Yeah. Okay. Why not? We're here anyway." She looked to Amy. "Got experience with these little cans of hate?"

"I sure do." She put her hand out. "Give me a gun. I'm in."

Rose checked the lock of her gun. "Before we go in, let's get our stories clear for our husbands back at home."

"They'll never know," River said with a toss of her head.

"Oh. They will," Rose countered. "Sneaky little sixth sense thing they have going on, remember." She rubbed at her brow and pinted to River Song. "You are a terrifically bad influence."

"Yep."

"Okay. Okay. Um." She looked up, and then looked down to the ground. "I'm a Torchwood agent. Citizens are in peril. It's my sworn duty. And I left my cellphone in the TARDIS." She looked at Amy. "Yeah?"

"I'm sold," Amy said with a wink. "Now enough chin wagging. Let's go have a chat to our neighbours."


	31. Girl Power

A/N: Home from work today with a sick little boy. I should say "Yaay. Extra writing time"… nope. I took a nap with him instead and had the weirdest dream where Rose was torn away from the Doctor and Jack was on a motorcycle trying to talk her into going with him instead. As she defeatedly denies his advances they find a letter on the road from the Doctor, which then began a treasure hunt to find the Doctor… Alas, my cellphone woke me up just as they found another clue on the window of an F150 truck that would take them to the TARDIS…

Where's this going? Nowhere. Just wanted to share that.

Okay, to Girl Power….

~~oooOOOooo~~

The trio of armed and dangerous_ Women of the Doctor_ cautiously moved through the tiny village. Their guns were held high, their shoulders hunched deep, and their eyes locked along the barrel of each weapon. River had taken up the main central point of their V-spread. Rose stood slightly back and off to River's Right; Amy cautiously took up the left.

Halfway through the village, they still had seen no sign of the enemy they currently hunted.

"I really don't like that it's so quiet," Amy muttered as she swung her firearm toward a rooster that spooked her with a cawk from atop a table. "Have the lads got meat for dinner tonight, because I just found a worthy candidate."

River let up a chuckle as Amy whispered _bang_ to the animal and pretended to pull back on the trigger. "The Doctors were planning to pull together something traditional to the area. I'm not quite sure if it involved meat – and if so, just what kind."

"Shoot it," Rose muttered. "Just in case they offer up a Kasterborian cat or dog." She shrugged when she received a look of horror from River. "Hey. You never know."

"Yeah," Amy breathed with a shudder. "I've learned that the hard way. I thought it was beef, it was something way not anywhere near close to that species of animal."

"Speaking of," Rose added with a lick of her lips. "Are you sure we don't want to bring in our Doctors on this? They are kind of specialists against the Daleks." She looked at her gun and let out a huff. "And you do know that these things are absolutely useless against Daleks, right?"

River seemed extraordinarily disappointed as she flailed her arms in annoyance. "If you really think we should interrupt the boys in their single moment of downtime in the last how ever many centuries, then by all means go ahead. I happen to think we are more than well enough equipped to handle a small band of Daleks."

"Have you ever come up against them before, River?" Rose asked sharply. "And I mean more than one at a time."

"I have," she said through a toothy and smug grin. "And they're absolutely terrified of me."

"Good for you," Rose muttered with a roll of her eyes. "I just thought, you know, the opportunity to sit back and watch two Doctor's in action, together, going against their greatest foe." She winked to Amy. "Wouldn't that be worth taking a back seat for?"

That image made all three girls pause I consideration. Rose purred, Amy hummed, and River panted.

"That is _almost_ enough to convince me," River came back with a wink. "But. But I'm getting a case of cabin fever right now and really need to take it out on something. So. You can call the Doctors, tell them I'll meet them inside." She kissed at her gun and sauntered toward the ship with a deliberate sway in her hip.

"She's taunting me," Rose muttered with a grump. "Talk about your classic peer group pressure move."

Amy shrugged. "Yeah. What can ya do?" She turned to walk backward while she spoke to Rose. "She's my daughter, so I'm going to follow."

"Hang on," Rose called as she jogged a few steps to catch up. "She's your _what_?"

"Oh," Amy sighed. "Long story."

"_Big Ball of Wibbly Wobbly Timey Wimey Stuff_ kind of thing?"

"Oh. That sums it up perfectly. When you travel with the Doctor, is there anything else?"

Rose shook her head. "No. Not really." She pointed her gun toward the ship, and to where River was climbing onto the top to open a hatch. "Well let's go protect your little girl … who you actually let marry the Doctor?"

"I haven't yet," she answered with a wink. She then looked at her gun. "Is it true that these things are useless?"

Rose nodded. "But don't worry," she managed with a grunt as she pulled herself up over the edge of the craft and lightly slid along the declined wing of the ship. She leaned her arm over the edge to offer a hand of assistance to Amy still below. "I didn't actually leave my cellphone on the TARDIS. I'll put a call into Spencer. I'm sure that some jiggery-pokery-portal-manipulation can get us something pretty effective from Torchwood."

"So you'll call _Spencer_ for help, but not the Doctor?" She grumbled with strain as she used Rose's arm as a holdfast to walk her legs up the edge of the ship. "That will go down so much better than you doing this, you know, with just us."

"Sarcasm was unnecessary." Rose rolled her eyes with agreement. "But. True."

River leaned both forearms on the edge of the ledge just above them. "Actually, I don't think either of them would actually get past the fact that we utilized the time stream and interdimensional portal to obtain the necessary items to effect this defeat." She dropped both arms to offer support to both girls. She tipped her head to Rose. "Her Doctor would probably be so damn proud of his new blonde Time Lord in training that he'd take her into the closest TARDIS and drill her against the console for the next week."

"There are so many parts of that statement that are insulting I simply don't know where to begin," Rose sniffed with a roll of her eyes as she clutched River's hand and walked up the edge of the ship. "So many."

"I was going to say that it's the crudest comment I've heard this side of high school," Amy muttered. "But you can't really deny it's true. He _would_."

"Would that happen before or after I got the Oncoming Storm lecture?" She pointed a finger into River's chest. "Which I am _not_ going through alone, by the way."

"Probably _during_," River offered with a wink. She shook her head. "Rose. Tell me. What was your rank at Torchwood?"

"My rank is Commander." She stepped forward to peer over the very edge of a large, round, glass window overlooking the interior of the ship. "I'm still with Torchwood."

River stepped to her side and looked into the room as Amy moved in to the other side of Rose. "Okay, Commander…"

"Don't call me that," Rose whispered as she scanned the entire area below. "We're equal. All three of us, okay?"

"Nice sentiment, Rose. Tell me, what are you thinking," River asked as her eyes tracked the movements of Daleks below.

"I think stronger weapons are needed," she admitted. "I can see four Daleks, which means there are more swanning about down there." She bit at her nail. "Looks like they have the whole village hostage down there. But why? Do they know the Doctors are here?"

"Nah," Amy wheezed. "There would have been some considerable _nya nya nya we've got civilians_ happening if they knew."

"Which," River grunted as she strained to look past the group of people. "Is actually surprising considering they're so damn scared of the Doctor." She checked the magazine on her gun. "This means that those people have something that the Daleks want, or need."

Amy took a look back at the village. "Like _what_? This place looks like something out of Robin Hood. Not exactly a technology hub full of toys for tins wearing skirts."

River snapped her head to Rose. "What do you know about Kasterborous, Rose?"

Rose shrugged. "About as much as you, I guess."

"You have a Time Lord brain, and you don't know anything about the Constellation that Gallifrey resided in?"

"Condescending much," Rose muttered with a curl in her lip. "I've had this big old Time Lord brain for about five minutes. I haven't exactly walked around and checked all the filing cabinets yet." She pressed both hands on the glass and looked down at the gathering. "The Doctor's Mum was supposed to give me a little help on being able to access it all. Right now the information kind of comes in bits and bobs as I need it."

"Well," she whispered. "We need it. We have to know why the Daleks need these people?"

Rose closed her eyes a moment and gave a deliberately dramatic breath. "A simple phone call would answer this question, you know that, right?"

"Time's awastin'" River urged.

Rose tilted her head to one side, her eyes still closed. After a moment her eyes snapped open. "This is the village of Visol, the telepathic hub of the planet Borrav. This village is – for lack of a better word – a _tribe_ of intrabred psychic beings. They number only 42 at any given time, breeding only when visions suggest that there is an imminent death."

"Creepy," Amy mumbled. "Knowing when someone's about to croak."

"Keep going, Rose," River urged. "Telepathy isn't exactly something the Daleks would want to harness."

Rose shook her head. "The number is specific because this provides them with the pyschic tetracontakaidigon that powers this planet, and keeps the orbit of the planet on path. Without it, this planet would shoot like a bullet into the sun."

"Which would be very very bad," Amy offered with a wince. "Lose just one of them and this planet is toast."

"Not just the planet," Rose said with a slight whine. "The resulting explosion would be great enough that the entire constellation would go with it." She rubbed at her head. "If the Universe loses Kasterborous, then…"

"It would be worse than the Reality Bomb," Amy finished. "The Gateway to time itself is in this constellation."

"Someone's been listening to the Doctor's lectures," River said with a wink. She looked back to Rose. "So it's very safe to say that if just one of those tribal members are killed, this shit would most certainly hit the fan."

"You could say that," Amy muttered.

"There is something else," Rose offered as she chewed on her thumb nail. "The psychic energies created by the power of the tetracontakaidigon is the power behind this planet." She looked to River. "And could he harnessed to power and stabilize a massive portal that the Daleks could use to pull in a full battle fleet. Or, alternatively, send the Daleks to a parallel to wreak some pretty impressive Hell everywhere else."

"Which would make more sense," River agreed. "They want total universe domination and destruction. That would have to include any parallel universes."

"So either way," Amy offered. "This is all bad. Very very bad."

"Add another suitcase of bad." River said with a wince.

"The entire cargo hold more like it," Rose said with a sigh. "But the question is. How did the Daleks know about this village. Only the Time Lords know the precise location and the power of the Visol people."

"My fingers are crossed that it's blind luck," River muttered. She turned to the girls. "So. What do we want to do?"

"First things first," Rose said quickly. "We need to get into their main control room and make sure that we make them deaf and mute to any other Dalek crafts that might be swanning about out there." Her head ticked. "Actually, best to see if there is anything else lurking out there and find a way to play boom crash opera on them. Blow the bug eyed sucker hand tin cans of hate to hell so they never come back."

River bit at her lip to squaff a smile. Amy's eyes widened.

"Hey," Rose groused with a smile. "They're ruining my honeymoon. I will destroy them all."

"Oh," River sighed with a smile. "I can see why he loves you. I think I've fallen in love with you too."

"Please. For the love of everything that's holy, please don't tell the Doctor that. He can get jealous, you know." She scanned the platform they were standing on in search of a way to get into the belly of the beast. "Amy. Could you please call or send a text to our boys and tell them what we've got here, tell them we could probably use their help?" She shot a glare to River before she could argue. "There is a potential for universal collapse across parallels, River. There's no choice. We have to call them."

"Agreed," Amy said with a nod as Rose located an entry hatch and hauled it open with a moan. "Need help with that?"

River nodded with a light roll of her eyes. "Then let me do it. I'll contact the boys, both of you head on in." She waved them on in a she held the phone to her ear. "Hello Sweetie…"

"What did I say about that, River," Rose hollered as she disappeared into the craft.

"Give her a break," Amy muttered as she climbed down the rusted ladder above Rose. "Habits die hard, remember. And oh, so will I if I don't get a tetanus booster when we get out of here." She let her feet touch at the floor and looked with disgust at her hands. "I guess Daleks have no need for ladder maintenance, right?"

Rose had much the same expression on her face as she rubbed her hands on her jeans. Her focus was on the end of the corridor, however, and fairly swiftly rose up out of her light stoop to move quickly along the corridor.

Amy saw the switch in Rose's demeanour that suggested friendly banter wouldn't be very much appreciated at this juncture. She'd seen enough military types in her travels with the Doctor to know when they'd decided the fun was over and the business end of world protection had to start. She fell into easy stride at Rose's side and was sure to keep her voice no louder than a hoarse whisper.

"Orientated, yet?"

Rose shook her head. "New lay out. This design isn't in the blueprints in my head." She looked left and then right. And then she looked left again. "This way."

At movement slightly around the corner, Rose put her hand back to stop Amy behind her. She pressed her finger to her lips and thumbed in the direction of the corner. Her eyes fell to Amy's gun and she gave her a nod to tell her to be ready. Rose waited with her back pressed against the wall, with her knees bent and primed to leap fast. She could sense that the thing moving down the hallway was not Dalek, and was more than happy to take a piece out of whatever it was.

Amy prepared herself as she watched Rose tense and prepare. "Do you know what's coming?"

Rose shook her head quickly and again, pressed her finger to her lips. She held for another second, and then launched as their corner was breached. Amy gasped at how fast Rose moved to twist, hook her ankle around the leg of the intruder, and then trip them to the ground. Rose very quickly ended with her forearm across the intruder's throat, her nose to their nose, and the muzzle of her firearm underneath their ear.

River Song looked up into Rose's steeled eyes and purred. "Well. Remind me not to sneak up on you in an alleyway anytime soon."

Rose actually slumped. She was quickly on her feet and dropped her arm to help River to her feet. "Sorry 'bout that."

"Don't be," she replied with a waggle in her brow. "That was actually very impressively unexpected – and quite thrilling – to be honest."

"Did you get hold of the Doctor?" Rose had obviously decided that the time for niceties had long since passed. "Are they on their way?"

River brushed dust from her shoulder and butt and gave a firm nod. "I reached my Doctor, and he passed along the information to the other boys. None too happy, any of them. I know some Gallifreyan, ladies, but nothing that came out of the mouths of those two boys when I broke it down for them." She bit her smile. "But they're on their way."

"Did you advise against using the TARDIS?"

"Yes. And that never goes down well with them, as you know." She looked at her watch. "We made it here in thirty minutes with a walk, we're looking at a minimum of fifteen to twenty minutes for them to get here."

Rose bit at her nail. "So until then, we are on our own."

"Under advisement to not touch anything," River clarified. "Stay out of trouble is the message I got."

Amy let up a short laugh. "Yeah. A little too late for that, right?"

"You think they'd know by now."

"They do. That's the problem," Rose muttered as she grabbed at Amy's hand and tugged her to walk with her around the corner. "I can hear the hum of the main control and communications platform through here. We need to get in and make a mess to make it easier for the guys for when they get here."

"What did you have in mind," River asked with a high brow.

Rose winked. "Back on the Crucible, I learned a thing or two about how to handle a Dalek or two or three or a fleet." She walked with her back along the wall, keeping a watchful eye on their path. "But first thing first, we need to monitor the sky and make sure there's no other evil tin cans swanning about up there, and make sure that any communication feeds are bypassed to the TARDIS rather than to any other Dalek ship."

River seemed particularly thrilled. "And you think you can do that?"

"Easy peasy lemon squeezy," Rose sang as she rounded the corner and burst into the main control room with her weapon out ready to fire. "Oh. Empty. Gotto like that."

"Oh. I don't know that I do," Amy muttered worriedly. "That never means good things."

"Keep watch at the door," Rose ordered as she kicked at a panel to remove it and dove into the wiring. She pointed to the communication console. "River, scan the skies for us? I'll fiddle down here."

"Need any help," River asked.

"If you have a sonic, that'd be great."


	32. Waiting for the Doctor(s)

A/N: You know that the boys really do want to play and get all protective!Doctor over the girls. But at the same time it is an interesting moment for them to look into the dynamic of River Song and Rose before they send them off to Mount Cadon Campus for a romp with Cadet Time Lords… _Romp_. That sounds so seedy, doesn't it? Remember back in the day when words really only had one meaning to them, and none of them were rude, crude, or politically incorrect?

No? Oh. You're not as old as me, then. Lucky you.

I digress. :points down: The conclusion to the Dalek fun and three _Doctor's Girls_ getting' all awesome…

~~oooOOOooo~~

_"__Need any help," River asked._

_"__If you have a sonic, that'd be great."_

River looked to the ceiling with a smile. "No. I don't have a sonic." Her eyes dropped as the communications line opened. "Seems that you have to have the name of Doctor to get one of those." She tapped at a couple of buttons. "The ship's sending out a general SOS communication into open space. Not to any ship in particular."

"Count ourselves lucky the signal hasn't been intercepted yet." She yelped at a zap and the raining of sparks over her face. "Stupid mongrel bloody loose wire connection …"

River Song had to laugh as the language became slightly more colourful. "Has _he_ ever heard you use language like that, Rose?"

"You mean the F-Bomb? Not in the context of which it was just used now, no." A slightly singed index finger rose up from underneath the console. "That was, however, a justifiable use of the swear, thank you. I got a boo boo from that one."

"But he _has_ heard it, am I correct?" River Song watched the finger disappear back into the wiring, but not before it flicked from side to side in a _nuh-uh_ signal . She smirked as she opened the command prompt to reroute the signal. "I'm sending the feed through to your TARDIS, Rose. As she has the parallel energies instead of the wavelength signal emitted by our TARDIS, it shouldn't be recognized by this ship as being the wrong intercept when the sonic bounces back."

"Atta Girl. Thanks. You know. For a race of beings that has a toilet plunger for a hand and no opposable digits, they can certainly put together some pretty damn complicated wiring set ups." She then cheered; an indication that the wire she was struggling with was re-ported correctly. "Oh yes! I'm a genius!"

"At that, I have to say _You've been hanging around the Doctor for way too long_," River Song sang. She made an exaggerated swipe at a switch on the console. "My job's done, how about you, Rosie?"

"Don't call me _Rosie_," Rose muttered, her teeth obviously around a wire or two. "I'm slightly behind on my mission parameters, but I should be done in one. Two. Done!" She wriggled out from under the console, and spat the wire between her teeth to the floor. "I've maximized the Dalekanium feeds…"

"That's not very bright, you'll increase their power," River Song snapped with concern.

Rose pulled herself to a stand using the corner of the console for leverage. "If you had let me finish," she warned. "Then you would have also heard me say that I've set a reversal loop feedback code to my Doctor's Sonic. Once he activates the setting, it will remotely make all those perky little Daleks go boom." She grabbed her phone and tapped in a short text message. As she hit _send_, she showed the screen to River. "And now he has the setting code. It'll be up to him as to whether or not he wants them destroyed."

"Nice," River purred. "Indeed you are a little genius."

She tapped at her temple. "Time Lord brain, remember." She moved to the main console and dropped her phone beside her as she checked on the communication stream and confirm the reroute of the signal. "My TARDIS is locked on to the signal, and she's nicely jamming the signal from sending beyond her. My beautiful, beautiful, girl."

"Good little TARDIS." River Song looked to the face of the phone as it lit up with a return message. "Only the Doctor can run and text at the same time. Oh. How sweet. He says he loves you. Oh. And…" She laughed.

"And?" Rose peered at the screen. Her lips shifted into an "O" shape. "Yeah. Like that's a possibility," she muttered with a roll of her eyes. "Stay out of trouble. Pfft. I'm married to trouble himself." She cleared her throat and focused on the system in front of her. "We need to create a weapons malfunction on both the Daleks and this ship." She looked down her shoulder at River as she considered the options. "Ahh. Shit. How did Donna pull that off back on the crucible?" She rubbed at her brow. "Oh, Doctor, I could use your memory recall right now."

"You have it," River suggested harshly. "Just tap into it. Think, Rose. Think."

Amy coughed from the doorway. "And think _quick_. We've got a tin can on the approach." She spun to the pair. "Want me to distract it while you think of how to disable it?"

River Song shook her head abruptly. "No. For the love of. No."

Amy shifted foot to foot. "Well you won't have a choice in about 45 seconds, because it's at the end of the corridor. I'm out there if you haven't thought of a way to disable it." She juggled her firearm for effect.

"I'll kill you myself if you do," Rose snarled. "We don't separate. Got me?"

"Thirty seconds," Amy warned. "I mean it."

Rose's eyes flashed up at River. "Go hold your mum back, okay? I think I know what I have to do to disable their weapons systems."

"Then you'd better hurry," River warned darkly. "She's as stubborn as the Doctor is."

"Crap." She swiped frantically at the console, creating a system of flicks and presses against switches and buttons. She jumped back as the console sparked, and blew the smoke out of the way as she peered to the weapons indicator. She blew air tightly into her cheeks and let out a rumbling, lip flapping, proud breath. "I am going to kiss myself. Really I am."

River's head shot up quickly as Rose sped toward her and Amy. "If you have good news for us, Rose, _I'll_ kiss you!"

"Then pucker up," she teased with a wink. She held up her gun. "Because our little cans of hate aren't going to be _exterminating_ anything today. Weapons are in malfunction, _and_ their shields are down."

Amy looked at her gun. "So this will work."

"You betcha," Rose answered with a grin.

"How," River Song queried.

"Macrotransmission of a K-filter wavelength to block the Dalek weaponry in a self-replicating energy blindfold matrix." She tapped at her temple again and squeaked excitedly. "I can totally get used to this, you know."

River grinned wide. She tipped her head to one side. She cupped Rose's cheeks in her hands. "I said I would." She laughed at Rose's startled gasp as she ostentatiously slammed her mouth against hers. She released her mouth with a loud wet smack sound. "Mmm. You taste like vanilla."

"Oh-kay," Rose breathed slowly as she backed off a step. "You just go stand over there, okay?" She snapped out of it with River's hearty laugh and winked to Amy with a flick of her head into the corridor. "You want the honours?"

"Oh yes," Amy cheered as she leapt into the corridor and fired off a pair of shots from her gun. She danced and blew at the muzzle of the weapon as she strode back into the room. "One down, how many to go?"

"Computer suggests that there are twelve Daleks on board this vessel," Rose advised as she thumbed through her phone to check on the location of the Doctors via the _Find my iPhone_ app. "They're going to be scattered about in here, but our priority are the Visol people." Her lips curled as she lifted her head from the phone and slid it into her jeans pocket. "ETA for the boys is about seven minutes if they can maintain their current foot speed." She looked to River. "And I'm not really of the mood to hang about and check on my manicure. You?"

"I boarded via the main observation deck, where the Visol people are being held," she offered. "I know the way there."

"Great." She looked to Amy. "How about you? Are you okay to…"

"I'm in, Rose," Amy quickly injected. "We have to finish what we started here, right?"

Rose grabbed at Amy's hand as River led them in a run through the corridors of the Dalek ship. More than once, the girls skidded to a halt and pressed their backs into the wall at the sound of a Dalek machine rolling along the metal grating.

"Why aren't we shooting them," Amy asked finally, as they allowed the third Dalek to roll by them. "Shouldn't we be killing them all?"

River shook her head as she checked that the corridor was again clear and waved for the ladies to follow. "No. Save your ammunition," she warned. "We don't know what we're going to encounter when we get on the deck."

"Yeah," Rose agreed. "And we don't know how long we're going to have to hold ground until the boys arrive, so conserve all you can."

"But their weapons are disabled," Amy challenged warily. "That's what you said, right?"

Rose nodded as she moved to brace one side of the door that led to their destination. "But you can't underestimate these guys," she warned on a whisper. "We're dealing with a species that continually defies the odds for survival. They have survived several different attempts to completely wipe out their species on multiple occasions."

"Like cockroaches," River snarled as she stood on the opposite side of the doorway to Rose. "Just because Rose was able to put their primary weapons into malfunction, it doesn't mean they don't have other options."

"Or support," Rose hazarded. "If they're not travelling alone, we don't know who they've aligned themselves with."

"Fortunately," River offered. "The Daleks aren't the type to form allegiances."

"You never know, though."

"Good point." River looked into the doorway. Three more Daleks had joined the original group of four to guard the villagers all huddled in silence and meditation on the steel grated floor. "Children," she snarled. "They took even the children."

Rose shifted a disgusted look toward River. "This entire craft will be obliterated," she snarled. "I don't care what the Doctor thinks. I'm not going along with his mission of mercy on this trip. Noone gets to terrify and threaten little children."

Amy grunted in total agreement. "If you need that sonic to destroy this place. River and I will hold him down and get it for you."

"And we'll stand in support and defense of each other if any of those two boys want to give us any heck for it," River growled. Her growl intensified to hear the frightened wail of a child no older than eighteen months old. "Just a baby."

Rose grounded and steadied herself a moment. She shared a look with both girls, and licked at her lip to draw a smile across her mouth. "So. Shall we get pull out a little showmanship while we wait the four or so minutes until the twin storms get here?"

River Song brushed herself down and straightened her outfit a little. "I'm ready." She looked to Amy, who merely slid in step beside her. "What about you, Amy?"

"I'm good."

"Okay,' Rose breathed. "Let's go play with the Tin Soldiers, shall we?"

The three ladies stood shoulder to shoulder to shoulder as they strode into the observation deck full of confidence, and each wearing matching darkened and disgusted stares.

The one they all assumed to be the lead Dalek – one in a copper colour rather than the standard silvery amber – rolled forward. _"Intruders. Explain yourself."_

"Oh," Rose breathed as she dramatically placed her hand to her chest in faux shock. "You mean this isn't the beach tour for the Club Med group?"

_"__Explain,"_ the Dalek ordered again. _ "Who are you?"_

River Song winked coyly, noting movement in the shadow of the doorway to the far end of the Observation deck. "Well. We aren't the Three Blind Mice," she offered. Her voice turned to a husky purr. "Although we did scamper very quietly, and very _wickedly_, through your little ship and maybe played around a little." She licked at her lip to see the glint off two sets of deep brown eyes lurking in the darkness of the doorway. Her eyes widened for effect as she tapped the tip of her finger against the blue eyestalk of the Dalek. "We were _very _naughty. Weren't we, ladies?"

Rose licked at her lip in amusement, trying to pull off the coy, but really not succeeding all that well as her tongue ended up between her teeth in much more innocently seductive grin. "Just a little bit," she answered as she held her finger and thumb only slightly apart. "There may have been a little tampering and hocus pocus done on the main Dalek control consoles. You really must ensure that you have adequate staff on at all times to protect your essential life support systems."

"You just can't get good help anymore," Amy offered with a shrug.

_"__Explain who you are, or you will be exterminated."_

"Oh," Rose huffed with a deliberately obvious roll of her eyes. "You won't be exterminating anything."

"No," Amy added as she looked with boredom at her nails. "We've seen to it that you're shooting blanks." She suddenly looked to Rose. "It is that they're shooting blanks, right? Or are they completely dead."

"Totally," Rose answered with a downward poke of her thumb. Her eyes caught sight of her Doctor as he moved around the doorway and offered her an encouraging smile.

_"__Enough. Exterminate. Exterminate. Exterminate."_

Rose saw the casual lean of her Doctor in the doorway across the deck suddenly lock rigid as he set to burst into the room to get at least one of the girls out of the way of a Dalek weapon, and she quickly raised her hand to stop him in his place. "Your weapons don't work here," she said with a laugh. "You're on Borrav, a peaceful planet. Protected by the sons and daughters of Time." She held up her hands in a pose of surrender. "Go ahead and try to shoot me. I won't fight back."

_"__Exterminate!"_

Rose waited for the hit of energy. She even dipped her head in challenge and annoyance in having to wait for it.

_"__Dalek weapons have malfunctioned. Explain. Explain. Explain."_

"Oh, that one's easy," the Doctor of Ten boasted as he walked around the gathered crowd and through the Daleks with his brother and Rory following closely behind. He struck one of the Daleks on the head with the butt of his fist as he walked through and put his face close to the eyestalk and leaned his forearm across the head of the beast. "You just happened to land your little ship in the path of three very beautiful and capable women of the Doctor." He looked to the trio with a smile. "Hello ladies. Sorry we're late."

_"__Alert. Alert. It's the Doctor."_

"Actually," Eleven breathed with amusement and a little tiny bit of arrogance thrown in. "It's _Doctors. _ As in plural."

_"__How is this possible. There is only one Doctor."_

"Not anymore," Ten warned as he pressed his eye in close to the eyestalk, and then drew back slowly to waggle his brows at the beast inside the machine. "There's two of us now, and ho boy does this mean very bad things for the somehow incredibly resilient Dalek empire." He narrowed his glare into the eyestalk. "Just how is it that you continually manage to survive even the most deadly defenses?" He screwed up his nose and shook his head. "Nah. Doesn't matter. I don't want to know. I've got far more interesting matters to be concerned about than how a robot with a squid form inside its shell can continually beat the odds."

Eleven moved to look down the same eyestalk as Ten. Side by side, the brothers Time Lord shared a look with each other, and then looked back to the Dalek. Eleven poked his finger into the very front of the eyestalk. "And how is your luck that you managed to threaten our wives, well _his_ wife, my future wife and mother in law all in one metallic whine? In all of the universes. In all of time and space, you just happened to stumble on the one planet where our entire family happened to be vacationing."

_"__We will be victorious. You will not defeat the Daleks."_

"Yeah. About that." Ten looked to his brother, his brows high and his lips pursed as he spoke. "Such bad luck, isn't it?"

"Very. Very. Bad."

They both walked backward. Ten's expression morphed into fury as he raised his sonic screwdriver and pointed it at the lead Dalek. He wore a sneer, snarl, and horrifically dark eyes and he glared down his arm and along the sonic screwdriver at the Dalek. "Worse for you. You threatened the women we love." His lip curled. "And _no one_ threatens my Rose." He depressed the switch on his Sonic Screw driver. "No one."

He didn't duck as the Dalek in front of him exploded. He didn't flinch as the surrounding Daleks blew into sparks and flames. He stood and watched with hot interest the flaming mutant beast in front of him and moved only to give it a swift and hard kick to get it out of his way.

He spun to check on the girls. His face fell into a friendly and gentle smile as he held both hands out to Amy and Rose. "Come on, let's get out of here before this thing blows as well."

"The villagers," Rose panted. "Are they…?"

"Rory was already getting them out of here as we were doing our victory speeches. That's why we took so long with it. We had to make sure," Eleven advised with a frown of analysis as he checked each one of the ladies over as they all ran from the ship. "Are you all unharmed?"

He waited to hear three affirmatives from the ladies and spun to his brother. "You and I need to get back in there and make sure that this ship will _disappear_ from any potential tech scans."

Ten nodded firmly. "Agreed." He looked to Rose. "You and River, how did you bypass the emergency signal?"

River answered on Rose's behalf. "The signal was sent direct to your TARDIS. The TARDIS is utilizing the second machine to block the signals from making it back out into space."

"Nice," he replied with a smile as he turned to Eleven. "We need to cancel that feed; make sure that the TARDIS base codes aren't exposed."

"Perhaps we can keep some of their sonars intact and put a shield over this area to prevent any other _visitors_ dropping by."

"Love that idea."

Rose frowned immediately. "No. You two aren't going back in there. It's set to go up any second."

Ten snatched her in for a one armed hug that quickly turned into a full and tight embrace. "Oh. Don't be a spoilsport. You don't want to take away all of our fun too, do you, Rose? We let you ladies play." He looked down at her with a wink. "We'll be right back, I promise."

"You better," she warned as she released him and stepped back. "Because. Just because, okay? I kinda need you around."

"That's incentive enough for me," he called as he jogged after Eleven. "Oi. Bowtie, Rory, wait up."

Once again the three ladies stood, just them, in the same place they stood before all of the fun had begun.

"Well," River remarked on a sigh. "That's all kind of anticlimactic, don't you think?"

"Somewhat," Rose admitted with a sizeable poke of her bottom lip out and over her top lip.

Amy gave a slight laugh. "You're forgetting who just ran back into that ship, aren't you?" She rolled her eyes with a smile. "That thing will blow sky-high and give these people an incredible fireworks display for the next week."

Rose chuckled knowingly. "True. So true." She thumbed toward the path. "Back to the homestead, then? I think there's a bottle of vintage red in the cellar that's just calling for us to free it from the damn and dusty confines of the cellar."

River Song cracked at her back. "Sounds good to me." She looked back at the rooster and thumbed over her shoulder at it. "Did we decide on whether or not we were going to take the chicken?"


	33. Ladies of Mount Hungover

A/N: Again, bluffing my way through …

~~oooOOOooo~~

Three men stood warily in the doorway between the kitchen and the living room, sipping from mugs of tea, and staring at the mess in the room ahead of them. Neither of the trio dared to make a sound. None really wanted to enter the room. In fact, when entering became a necessity in order to retrieve something from an armchair by the window, it had come down to a coin toss to see which of them would be tasked with tip-toeing lightly across the floor to get it.

Eleven lost the toss, and he'd actually whimpered in defeat. Even a slap on the back of the head by Ten, and a stern warning that _Time Lords do not whimper_, hadn't quelled the fear deep inside his gut. Eventually he'd been coaxed into performing an intricate dance on his toes to dodge any and all things that just might make a scrape, a squeak, a creak, a moan, and managed to retrieve the item. He panted in victory upon his return as he received congratulatory slaps on the shoulder from Ten and Rory.

After that, each of them had engaged themselves in mindless activities for the next two hours in hope to avoid the inevitable rise of the three women sprawled about the floor, the couch, the mat in front of the now extinguished fire.

The antique, solid wood coffee table gave them adequate intel as to how late, and just how messily, the girls entertained themselves the previous evening. Four empty bottles of red wine, three long stemmed glasses, lipstick stained, and still with a sip of red swirling in the bottom. Minor evidence of spillage was on the table, on the floor, and on the shirts of the three girls.

Yep. This would take some rather brilliant Time Lord strategies to clean up before they took off. More brilliant would have to be the strategy to not get murdered by three members of the most deadly half of any species … Two of them Time Lord.

"We have to do it, you know," Ten finally muttered, his teeth nipping at the edge of his mug as he leaned against the doorframe.

Rory pursed his lips worriedly. "Can't we give them another, oh, I don't know, the rest of the week to sleep it off?"

Eleven agreed. "We have two TARDIS machines outside. We can always take a day trip to the other end of the Universe to ensure that we're not going to be anywhere near here when they finally do wake up."

Ten rubbed at his brow. He winced. "Tempting. So very tempting." He let his hand shift from his brows to cover his mouth, and looked painfully toward the living room. "But. Oh Hell. We're Time Lords, the Oncoming Storms, and bringer of destruction against all enemies. Full armies panic at the mere mention of the word _Doctor. _Surely we can deal with three women with hangovers."

"You're talking a red-wine strength hangover, Doctor." Rory shook his head backed up into the kitchen with a smirk. "I'm no Time Lord, gentlemen. So go right ahead with your oncoming storm bit and wake the monsters from the ninth pit of Hell." He thumbed to the kitchen table. "I'll just go write your obituaries."

Eleven snatched at his collar. "You're the last of the Centurians, Rory. You should be valiant and fearless alongside us."

"You've met all three of them, yeah?"

Ten squared his shoulders and put his mug on the mantle beside the door. "I'm going in."

"Wait," Eleven hissed in warning. "What's your strategy? You're not going in there without a plan."

Ten looked slightly innocent. "Well. I was going to clap my hands and yell at them all to get up because nap time was over – like I normally do when Rose sleeps in."

"That's how you wake her, man?" Rory wore a frown. "You mean you don't gently rouse her with a kiss or a soft shake?"

"Only when I'm still in bed with her and am feeling frisky," he admitted. He then shrugged. "Typically I'm up first, and have showered and dressed before she's up. I'm a living alarm clock." He wriggled a little with a roll of his eyes. "And more often than not I get something thrown at me and told to shut up and give her another ten minutes. It took me three weeks of being pelted by dangerously weaponized bedroom accessories to take care to make sure that only soft and fluffy things were within her reach before trying to wake her."

Eleven grinned. "Oh those were the days. Scaring her witless by bounding into her room on the TARDIS because we'd landed somewhere exciting."

"Or still in the Vortex and just wanting to scare her witless because we were bored out of our head and wanted something to do."

Both of them snorted in laughter.

Rory opened his arms in challenge and bowed lightly to the Tenth Doctor. "Then regale us with your alarm clock brilliance, oh Lord of Time. Wake our wine-stained women. Your brother and I will be up in the Vortex waiting for the mushroom cloud to dissipate." He held out his hand. "It was a pleasure to meet you. I'll be sure to tell your mother that it was an honourable death."

Ten grinned cheekily as he took Rory's hand and gave it a firm shake. He kept hold of his hand and then hauled him into the living room and let him stumble into the back of the couch. The resulting shake of the couch, and his loud grunt of surprise immediately had three sets of eyes flash open, and at least one gun pointed in his direction. The gun quickly fell and jumped across the ground as its holder opted to clutch at her head instead.

Amy's hand shot up to grab him by the collar of his shirt. She snapped him down over the back of the couch and snarled unpleasant, wine stained morning breath into his face. "I'm going to kill you," she snarled. "Slow and painful."

"But. Amy. Love," he spluttered. "It wasn't my fault."

"Oh I know whose fault this is," Rose growled from the floor between the coffee table and the armchair. She hadn't dared to move a muscle. "I can hear you smiling over there, Doctor," she snarled. "You put him up to this, didn't you?"

Ten arched his back in a stretch and let a grin spread across his face. "Right. Now that everyone's awake. Time to get up and at 'em. Got places to see, things to do."

"Kill me," a female voice moaned from somewhere in the living room. The owner of the voice wasn't immediately identifiable.

"Oh, there will be no killing of anyone or anything in here today," Ten advised with a chirp in his tone. "But there will be waking up, discussion, and TARDIS travel. So up! Come on you lot. Allons-y"

"River," Rose begged painfully. "Please throw something at him. I beg of you."

"I'm too scared to move," River whimpered. "My head is about to go supanova."

"Oh you bunch of lightweights," Ten charged. "Two of you are Time Lord, you should be better equipped to…" He was thrown back by two large seat cushions, tossed from two different trajectory points, direct into his face. "Rude."

Eleven shook his head as he walked into the room, armed with three bottles of water, and clicked his tongue at the other two men. "So classless, aren't they, ladies? I was vehemently against disturbing you, but my brother, he was most insistent."

Amy snatched one of the bottles from Eleven and pointed a glare and a finger at him. "I don't believe you for a second."

"I wouldn't lie to you," he assured.

Rose's hand, a finger raised, jutted up over the coffee table, the rest of her body still hidden. "Rule number one is what, ladies."

"The Doctor lies," they answered with matching winces and groans.

"Precisely," Rose muttered as she slowly hauled herself up to a seat. She slouched against the foot of the arm chair and let out a rather undignified, and definitely unladylike, belch.

"So full of class and grace, aren't you, Rose?" Ten dropped his face close to hers, analyzing her focus for a moment, and fell down onto the chair behind her. His legs sat either side of her shoulders and he stooped to hook his arms underneath hers. With ease, he pulled her up to sit in the space between his legs. He set his chin on her shoulder and let his arms circle around her waist. "So, girls. About today's adventure…"

Rose winced as she pressed her finger to her mouth and let a _shhhhh _sound explode through her lips. "No talking. Snuggle good. Talk bad."

"Talk very bad," River agreed as she crawled toward the coffee table and set her forehead against it. "Living is not so good right now, either."

"I'm afraid that talking is very necessary," Eleven said with a smirk as he flopped down heavily onto the couch, making Amy jump and then hold at her mouth as though ready to vomit. "Bathroom is thattaway," he advised with a fast point of his hand. "Don't miss this time, okay?"

"_This_ time?"

He gave an apologetic look toward her. "Partially my fault. I got the hold of your hair wrong."

"How do you hold hair wrong," she asked with deliberate incredulity. She shot a look to Rory. "Any why him and not _you_?"

"I was filming the epic twenty minute declaration of love from Rose to Pinstripes here and didn't see you take off." He flicked his hand to Eleven. "He was on it, though. Knight in a Fez."

"Oh," Rose said with a slouch. "I did that _again_? I'm so sorry. I'm off wine forever. Never again. Ever."

"Don't be sorry," he chuckled. "Your metaphors were quite creative this time around. The sloppy kisses, though," he waggled his hand in the air. "So-so. Need to work on that."

Rose palmed her face and moaned.

River rolled her head so that her chin was on the table. She battled for clear focus and blinked a couple of times to get it. "So. You guys poked the beasts for a reason. What's on today's agenda?"

"We're all taking a trip," Eleven announced as he rolled a bottle of water along the table toward River. "And the sooner the better as we lads are starting to get a little too comfortable here and just might not want to move anywhere if we hang about for much longer." He leaned back into the couch and spread his arm along the back. His hand toyed with Amy's hair as he continued. "We've been presented with a task. My brother and I would prefer to get to it sooner than later."

River Song folded her arms in a square on the table and gingerly rested her head on them. "What _task_; and where are we headed?"

"Gallifrey," Ten answered immediately. "There's something that we have been asked to do on Gallifrey. We're set to materialize in the great hall of Lungbarrow, and from there will work on putting all of the pieces together to get it done." He felt Rose stiffen in his hold. His voice quietened as he took himself from the conversation. "Hey, you okay?"

Amy's face brightened immediately. "We're actually going to go to Gallifrey? Seriously?"

"Lungbarrow," River said with a slight swoon. "The family home of the Doctor. It's kind of like bringing me home to meet your mum and dad."

Eleven shrugged. "Yeah. Something like that, and if all goes well to plan, you'll get the chance to meet them both." He scratched at his hair. "Don't know that you'd be too thrilled by meeting my father," he admitted. "He's slightly above hardass task master. He's a genius, for sure. Brilliant even…"

"So nothing like you then," Amy muttered with a teasing smirk. "Are you more like your mum?"

"She's worse," Eleven offered. "We're all bloody terrified of her, which is why we're going to make a detour to Gallifrey before these two head back to their parallel and we get back on our path." He looked to Ten and was surprised to see that he and Rose had shifted from the seat and were in the middle of a deep conversation at the window. "Everything good over there, Doctor?"

Ten didn't look at him, but nodded and waved a hand to him in respectful acknowledgement that he'd heard him.

"So anyway," he continued as he dropped his gaze back to Amy and River. "Before my brother left the parallel world, with no intention other than spending a couple of hours in the Vortex to let Rose recover, our mother tasked him with finding our Father."

"Your father is missing," Amy said with a gasp.

"Incarcerated," River corrected with a narrowing of her eyes. "For cavorting with Aliens if my studies are correct." The Doctor's eyes flared only slightly, which could have said that he was surprised or that she was right – or both – and so she continued. "There is no mention of his name or actual charge at all in any of the official records and journals. But there is mention along the lesser circles of the man who was known as the father of the Doctor being held in a special containment facility on the charge of playing about with Aliens."

"That _Alien_ would be my mother," Eleven said with a sniff. "She wasn't born on Gallifrey, or even to Gallifreyan parents, but she was able to infiltrate the houses of the Lords, attend the Academy, achieve a bonded marriage with a Time Lord, and end up on council." He looked to his brother, who had finished his conversation with Rose, and now stood at her side with his arm held protectively across her shoulder. "Rumours swilled from a soothsayer at council that my father had fathered children to a non-Time Lord entity."

"And you must understand," Ten added. "That during that time the Time Lord society expressly forbid interfering with, or _hooking up_ – for lack of a better term – with aliens. Even relations between Time Lord and Gallifreyan civilians was frowned upon."

Eleven pressed his lips together to nod an expression of disgust. "My father was well aware that our Mother wasn't Gallifreyan. It was never a secret between them."

"The kids, by the way, were us and our brother. Well," Ten amended with a frown. "Him and our brother, actually. I'm not exactly part of that equation, am I?" He shrugged and shook his head. "So when our father, who is an honest man, was accused of fathering children to an alien, he didn't exactly deny it."

"But he didn't reveal the identity of the Alien, either," Eleven finished. "Rassilon and the council demanded that he reveal the name of the mother of his bastard children, because they were of Time Lord blood. When he didn't, they took everything from him: his name, his identity, his home, wife, children. He ceased to exist."

"With no records that he ever existed, there could be no claims made to the houses of the Lords by this alien looking to benefit from having Time Lord children." Ten gave a rueful smile. "Our father's love for our mother is such that he would rather spend centuries locked in a dark prison with no face and no name, than have her put in the hands of Time Lord Council as the alien who corrupted him."

"That's so tragic,' Amy breathed as she clutched onto her husband. "So sad."

River was just confused. "But that doesn't make any sense, Sweetie. How can the Council believe that he fathered any children, when all of Gallifrey is sterile? There has not been a wombed child born on Gallifrey for thousands of years."

Ten took to answering this question. "The sterility of the Gallifreyan race is only limited to conception between Gallifreyan couples. It's not that the womb is barren or that the men of Gallifrey are shooting blanks. It's simply that conception within the womb on Gallifrey is impossible."

"So what you're saying is…"

"For example. If Rose was still human," he clarified. "I could very easily have children with her. Lots of children. A horde of cute little Time Lord Human babies with blonde hair and beautiful hazel eyes." He looked down at her with a smile that quickly fell to an apologetic half smile. "As we are both Time Lords, however, the only way we could have a child together would be through the loom at Lungbarrow." He hooked her hair behind her ear in a tender gesture as he pressed his lips to the side of her mouth. "Which is an option for us. Down the line. If you want."

"Would you _want_?"

"Yeah. I would. I do."

Rose hooked her arm up over his shoulder, around his neck, and drew him in for a long and languid kiss.

River shifted her focus to Eleven in light of Ten's sudden and very worthy distraction. "It shouldn't even be possible for you to reproduce with a different species," she countered with a tight brow. "Or at the very least, offspring that could possibly reproduce."

Eleven shook his head. "Not impossible, and it has happened. My grand daughter Susan had children with her human husband with no conception difficulties at all."

Amy was slightly stunned at that. "You're a great grand dad?"

"I was, yes."

She pursed her lips maintaining her expression of surprise. "I would never have guessed. You look good for a wrinkly old great grand pop."

"Looking good in my old age, aren't I?" He leaned his elbows on his knees. "Back to it, though. With our father not listed in any way that we can possibly find him, even with the TARDIS at our disposal, we need to get to the one place there may be answers."

River Song seemed to have lost her hangover as her attention sharpened. "Where? Arcadia?"

Eleven shook his head. His eyes were wide with concern. "No. And if it was, I wouldn't send you there under any circumstances. Only Pinstripes and I would set foot in that place."

"But we could get in undetected," she offered. "I mean Rose and I, of course."

"With the Time Lord elite? Men and women who have not only trained at the Academy, but also taught there?" He leaned forward to address her sternly, but without condescension. "You're talking about telepathic masters who would seed you out the minute you stepped into the main citadel. You and Rose are Time Lords, yes, and you would move about completely undetected in, say, an Academy setting. But not with the Full Council."

"Your mum did it," she argued.

"After training for almost a century at the Academy under the guidance of the Prydonian Telepathic masters." He huffed. "Don't argue with me on this, River. I won't back down."

"They're swift to order execution," Ten added, his affections with Rose momentarily postponed. "I know, I've had to get creative to stave off my own execution."

Eleven winced. "And what we had to go through to prove our innocence, Brother. Did you ever think that letting them kill us however many times it would take to actually kill us was a fairly viable option?"

Ten's face screwed up in recollection on the President's Assassination. "At the time, I briefly considered letting them go through with it. Still. All's well that ended well. It was Hell crawling about in the matrix, but we got to the root of the problem at the end of the day." He scratched at his sideburn. "And became President for a bit."

"President Doctor," River managed with a laugh. "I'd love to see you – both of you – in your Prydonian robes. That'd be a lark."

"Yeah. No thanks," Ten muttered as he shoved a hand in his trouser pocket.

"No fun at all," she breezed. "So. Where is it that we can get this information for your Dad?"

"That's the fun bit," Ten said with a broad smile. "You and Rose. You're going to our Alma Mater. We've enrolled you in the Mount Cadon Campus." His brow rose high at the differing expressions between the girls. River seemed absolutely thrilled at the prospect, Rose looked positively mortified. "You start, well, 2 hours ago, but that's not such a big deal considering we have two very capable time machines parked out front that could skip us back to the right time."

"And just how do you expect that we're going to get any information on Council business from a school," Rose asked darkly, her disgust at being sent to school blatantly obvious to all.

"Not happy about the prospect of returning to school, Rose?" Eleven was surprised. Rose was incredibly bright, and the hunger she had for learning that he saw as he went back into her timeline to assist her with her highschool homework made him think that she would relish this opportunity.

"I hated school," she admitted with a curl in her lip. "Full of hate and bullies and mean mean people." She levered a finger in his direction. "And don't you set about trying to convince me that Time Lord Schools are any different. They're just all a hell of a lot smarter than an Earth kid, which means their bullying tactics will be far more superior than when I went to school."

"I'm not going to try any arguments of the sort," Eleven fired back smoothly. "Those cadets can be something else. Trust me. I know that very well."

"Don't forget that I'm not exactly telepathic, nor am I Time Lord clever like River is."

"Don't doubt yourself. You're brilliant." Ten pulled her against his side. He jutted his chin to River Song. "You're going to have River with you. And you're also going to have two fiercely protective Time Lords and two TARDIS machines monitoring your every move and talking you through all of it."

"And we promise you," Eleven vowed. "If they look to make any trouble and push around either of you, we'll be there in a TARDIS second."

Ten grinned wide. "Come on. You ladies were able to take on a Dalek scout team yesterday. You bypassed their signal feed, disabled all of their weaponry, were able to send a feedback code to my sonic so that we could blast them back to Skaro. On top of that you added a level of finesse that no Time Lord cadet could ever hope to achieve." He winked. "You're going to give these Gallifrey boys a run for their money."

Eleven agreed. "You have with us; why not let us share that wealth across Gallifrey?"

"True," Rose said with a light bob of her head.

"So just what purpose does Rose and I heading to school actually serve," River queried after a long draw on her water bottle. She had to speak over the back of her hand as she wiped at her mouth. "Aside from torturing the two of us with Time Brats?"

Ten rubbed at the back of his neck. "Dad's entire existence was wiped at Council level, and that took more than a quarter century to be fully effected." He tugged at his ear, then stuffed his hand into his pocket. "Bow tie and I were thinking that this means the only information that we could possibly attain would be through the archives at the school. The Library. The Dean's office. You know, where things get stored and forgotten about?"

Eleven rubbed his hands on his knees before he drew himself to a stand. "There was a biographical author who followed the proceedings of the trial and the court decisions. He disappeared without a trace less than a decade after the final council meeting on the subject. Rumour is that he was a professor at Cadon, and that his texts are probably still there."

River Song nodded her head as she considered things. "Due to the fact I'm familiar with the case, it does lend credence to the existence of these texts. I'm sure that I'd know what to look for once we get in there."

Rose poked at Ten's belly. "There is one thing that we need to take into serious consideration about this."

"Mmm?" he hummed with a giggle at the tickle. "What's that?"

"I don't speak or read Gallifreyan. No dialects. None. Nada. And River can only scrape by as a tourist." She looked over her shoulder at the TARDIS. "And those girls refuse to translate that language for us."

"She has a point, Doctor."

"We're giving TARDIS permission to translate for you," Eleven announced. "Only for this reason, understood. Not any longer than that. I want to have my private moments, you know, where I can say something under my breath from time to time without anyone knowing what I'm saying." He circled his finger at Rose. "And there will be no swears translated for you so that you can add to your collection of languages you can swear in. Yes. I know about that."

Rose pumped open and closed her hand three times toward Amy. "Fifteen different Alien languages, Amy. Fifteen!"

"Eighteen," she chuffed smugly in response. "Got you beat."

"Twenty Seven," River song chirped victoriously. "And seventeen Earth languages."

"Oh," Rose chuckled. "I'm very impressed. Shall we compare notes?"

Eleven gave them all an incredulous look. His gaze narrowed as he pointed between he and his brother. "Five Billion. Both of us."

"Yeah, but you don't share the glory, so you don't count," Amy charged him with an arrogant tilt in her shoulder. "Whereas we will gladly share all of our new teachings so that they may be enjoyed amongst the masses."

Eleven blinked. "Oh-kay." He shook his head in wonder and then clapped his hands. "So. How about it. Everyone go get cleaned up, we can clean up, and then off to Gallifrey?" He watched the girls slowly get up to make moves toward their respective bathrooms and called his brother across. He dipped his voice low and kept his eyes on Rose as she lumbered toward the door.

"Is everything okay?"

Ten nodded as he scratched his sideburn then slid his hand to hold at the back of his neck. "Yeah. Aside from being hungover, she's fine. Why?"

"Couldn't help but notice the two of you step aside for a bit."

"Oh," Ten hummed. "No. Nothing to worry yourself over. When I said Gallifrey, she was thinking we were going for another reason."

"Which would be?"

Ten smirked and gave a wink. "Spoilers, apparently. I'm not allowed to say." He let the smile fall. "Do me a favour. Double check our landing date. Make sure she's not going to encounter someone like Borusa or Rassilon. After her run in a couple of days ago, I'm not sure how she'd go if she bumped into them."

"No chance of either, but I can confirm." He coughed as Ten made to leave, and pointed at the mess from the girl's evening. "Where do you think you're going? You have to help with this mess."

"Rose is feeling a little out of sorts," he said with a shrug and a smile. "I figured I'd go take her for a shower in the TARDIS and see if I can help make her feel better."

"No. You're not shirking your part of clean up duty with the excuse of shagging in the TARDIS," Eleven warned with a growl. "Get back here."

Ten gave an Oscar wining dramatic eye roll, slouched backward, and moaned, but joined Eleven with the clean up. "I'm getting a rather heavy feeling that this isn't going to go quite as smoothly as we expect it to."

"Since when does anything we do go smooth?"

"Yeah, good point. But just once, you know, once would be nice. Especially if we're not the ones storming in the place."

Eleven laughed. "Be careful what you wish for, Brother. We might end up doing just that."


	34. Lungbarrow

A/N: For those of you who have made it this far: Thank you. Thank you and thank you. I certainly hope that you will continue to enjoy as I bring us to the final run at this journey (Still probably a couple of weeks away from the final completion – maybe less – depending on my writing time of course).

I am definitely just writing on the fly here .. and I'm taking some severe liberties in just why the Doctor left Gallifrey. Just why he is who he is, and who his family really are. If you've read the Lungbarrow novel, and are looking for a parallel between the two then I apologise. This is in no way accurate to that story. This is my own take on everything based on my own interpretations on the little bits and pieces I've read on the Wiki site.

Please don't flame me for it…

~~oooOOOooo~~

If the Doctor was to describe the House of Lungbarrow to any of the companions that have chosen to join him in the console room of the TARDIS as they traveled through the Vortex toward their destination, it would be simple. Three words simple, actually: Ancient and terrible.

Oh, sure, he did have fond memories of the place from when he was but a wee loomling. His mother with her long red hair tied back with a golden ribbon, lightly stroking his hair as he rested his head against her bosom and they read together. His father, strong and proud, hoisting him up into the air to show him the stars and constellations bright in a dark amber night sky. He held fond memories of both of his parents. He saw them deeply in love, affectionate and doting on their two precious children. Then there was his tutoring at the hands of a sentient robot instructor, who really couldn't seem to keep him wholly focused at all times, and was consistently tasked with the job of informing his parents and the housekeeper that the young Doctor had escaped yet again.

Oh how many times he escaped through the windows of the old house. His pathway to escape was used with such frequency that he had smoothed a long slide along the white trunk exterior of the home. He was many times thankful for the sentient nature of the Lungbarrow home, and her care in ensuring that no matter which window he found himself climbing to freedom, his smooth and weathered slide would always be right there and waiting for him. On the occasion that he had his nose in a book as he wandered the hallways, he would hear the creak of chairs moving across the wood and out of his way. She kept him safe as a young child. No boo boo's when he was there, not if she could help it.

So like his TARDIS, but without the occasional bitchy moods.

Perhaps the considerate nature of his home was due to their wonderful house keeper. Her gentle and kind spirit was so eagerly absorbed into the stunning arborescent architecture of the home and expressed to all residents of the home.

The kind nature of the home certainly wasn't from any of the Cousins loomed at Lungbarrow. That part of his family he could definitely do without, and was ultimately the force behind his decision to leave Gallifrey. From the moment he escaped the loom, after an untold age of waiting inside time to emerge naked and vulnerable at the Lungbarrow loom, they laughed. They taunted him. Forty-four cousins laughing, poking and prodding from the very start.

_Snail. Wormhole._

Vicious taunts and names; all because he had a slight physical difference to them: A Navel. A tiny little pit in his lower belly. It was a slight imperfection that his mother assured him was something that made him special.

He should have known, even at such a young age, that this imperfection was due to his mother not being born of Gallifreyan stock. He knew she was _Alien_. His parents never did shield that from him. They told him of his mixed heritage, and that it was something to treasure. A mix within him, a delightful joining of two powerful and wonderful consciousness and beings.

_Tolerance, love and understanding to all. _His mother had cooed gently against his ear. _Never be cowardly or cruel toward those that you don't yet understand. Cherish their differences and learn, my Son. You will be the stronger for it._

Her actual heritage _was_ a secret, but he wasn't blind. There was only one planet from which she could have been born and raised. The one planet that always felt like home to him.

Earth.

His father always spoke of his travels and his adventures throughout all of space and time on his own TARDIS. He would regale the young Doctor with stories of battles and wars, of peaceful moments and exciting runs through alien lands. His favourite stories, however, always involved his father and his beautiful companion Marissa. A woman so majestic and brilliant that he had fallen in love the very first moment they'd met on a little green planet way off across the endless eons of space. Once his hand found hers, he never wanted to let go.

_Run, my Son._ His father had ordered with desperate urgency as the Council removed him from his family home. _Run. Don't bind yourself to being only Time Lord stuck here on Gallifrey to catalogue the adventures and texts of everyone else. Run. Find your own adventure. Live. Find your own beloved and never look back._

It was with those words that the Doctor found the courage to finally drive himself from Gallifrey in search of his own life of adventure. As his family was destroyed by the removal of his childhood hero, the Doctor, now an aging man ready for his first regeneration, became disenchanted by the strict rules of being time Lord. He experienced marital and parental love, but felt the pain of never actually having been in love; a wonder so perfectly shown between his parents. He no longer wanted to be held to a position that gave him little satisfaction, and so he stole a TARDIS to embark upon the same life as his father; to experience the same thrilling adventure of life.

And he found everything that his father had wanted for him to find. All of it wrapped up in a neat little pink and yellow package that was currently dancing distractedly along to the pop song of the moment with River Song and Amy. Both of the companions of Eleven had asked to fly inside his TARDIS for the trip to Gallifrey with the excuse of wanting to travel in the newest model TARDIS – to Eleven's pained chagrin, of course. He had agreed if only at the behest of Rose. Love her, she enjoyed their company as much as they appeared to enjoy hers. He loved the way that she seemed to shine in their company.

Oh, but she would shine in the company of anyone and anything. Even the blackest curtain of night wouldn't be able to shadow her light. Much like the unwavering glittering lights of the chemiluminescence blooms that littered the forest floor at the base of Mount Lung to guide a weary Time Lord home on a lonely dark night, there would be no extinguishing the incredible light within her.

His thoughts let his eyes trail toward her and he had to smile. Rose's hair was still wet and wavy from her shower and she had a toothbrush hanging out of her mouth. The only makeup she wore was a thin line of eyeliner and a light coat of mascara. So natural. So striking. So incredibly beautiful to him. How in Rassilon did he get to be so lucky to have found her?

A chime from the navigation computer warned him that they were exiting the vortex and would soon arrive at their destination. He looked to the girls through the central column of the console. "Are you ladies ready," he asked with a toothy grin as his hand hovered over the materialization lever.

"Are we on track to beat them there," Amy queried from around a monitor with her own smile firmly in place. "Because I have a decent bet with the Doctor that says we'd be there first."

"Time Lords don't _compete_ with their TARDIS machines," he admonished with a snort. "They are delicate and complicated machines that are not designed for racing." He rolled his eyes. "Humans, really."

"That means they're going to land first, right?" River Song said with a sigh. "Brand new TARDIS. Pfft. I thought she'd have a leg up on the old rattler."

A Northern accent chipped in sharply. "If you wouldn't mind, Ms. Song, please toggle the lever to your right, and I will make sure that our materialization occurs before the other TARDIS."

The Doctor grunted in annoyance. "Really, TARDIS? You're going to let them pressure you into racing against the other machine?"

"You need to test out my limits, Doctor," he smoothed back with a definite smile in his voice. "Up against my sister is the best way to do so, wouldn't you think?"

"I agree," River Song said with a cheer as she flipped the lever and the ship jolted with the extra speed. She leaned sideways toward the Doctor. "Your TARDIS talks to you?"

"Yes," he said with a rub of his brow and an accusing look toward Rose. "Seems my lovely wife thought it would be a great idea to have a sentient machine that not only talks to us, but will also appear from time to time to scare the bejesus out of me." He cleared his throat. "An image in my ninth form, of course." He shrugged. "Because I'm not insecure in an way at all."

"So. Okay. Your TARDIS sounds like a dude, and apparently looks like a dude, and you call it a girl?" Amy queried with a smirk. "Oh. Doctor. The implications." She looked at Rose. "Does he call it _Sexy_ and lovingly stroke parts of it, too?"

"Don't," he whined with a wince. "Please don't."

"I think I will," she threatened with a guffaw. "Especially if we don't get to Gallifrey before the other TARDIS."

"Again," he warned almost tiredly. "Not a racing machine. And I do not refer to this machine as _sexy_, and nor do I stroke parts of it."

Behind him, Rose nodded a teasing _oh yeah, he does_ smile.

"I saw that," he snapped. "Keep it up, and I'll reprogram the interface to be a really buxom near naked woman and really set about stroking and purring…" No sooner had it left his mouth the Doctor immediately wished he could take it back. Judging by the wide eyes, puffed cheeks, and reddening faces of three women truly holding back from explosive laughter, no amount of backpedalling was going to save his face. He merely dropped his forehead into his palm and groaned. "You girls are messing with my head. Trust me when I say that it actually did sound better in my head."

"How?" River Song burst out. "There is no way that could ever sound good."

"I know." He quickly threaded by her to punch at a button on the other side of the console. "And look at that. We've landed." He grinned as he jogged to the doorway and pulled it back to peer outside. "Kasterborous. Gallifrey. Great Hall. Lungbarrow. Early morning." He cupped his hand to his ear as the sound of the second TARDIS engine filled the expansive room. "And we got here before the dastardly duo. Amy, you'd better collect on your bet before he tries one of those _double or nothing_ back-outs."

Amy weaved by him to step into the hall. "I'm just short of squealing with delight that we're actually _here_," she breathed as she stepped onto the white wood flooring. She immediately walked a twisting series of circles as she strode forward. "My God. This is beautiful."

River Song shot out next. She paused for only a moment to look up in awe at the twisting, trunk-like texture of the walls that branched a weaving pattern to form the ceiling. "Wow," she breathed. "I thought the Summer home was lovely. This." She held her hand to her chest. "This is so much more stunning."

"Yeah," the Doctor choked in a voice holding a mountain of pain.

Rose opened the door beside where her Doctor stood and gave him a look of concern that he had yet to step foot over the threshold of the TARDIS floor. "Are you okay?"

His arm Snaked out to claw at the waistband of her pants. His fingers found hold and he tugged her to his side. As she stumbled against him, he let his arm slide across her shoulder and pressed his lips to her hair. "Would you think less of me if I told you that I hate this place," he admitted quietly.

Rose slid her arms around his waist and looked to the other TARDIS, noting with despair that the Eleventh Doctor held much the same fear of stepping into the room as her own Doctor. She held out her hand to him and wriggled her fingers in invitation. "Come here, you. Come join the snuggle."

"I'm fine," he croaked.

"No you're not." She flicked her fingers again. "Come on."

"I'm perfectly fine." He looked to Ten. "The time coordinates, when did you drop us here?"

"This place is deserted," he assured quickly. "Solstice Retreat for Council. The whole house is at Arcadia for at least three days."

"So not a single cousin is here?"

"Nope." He gave a solid pop of the P.

Eleven raised his eyes to the ceiling. "Thank Rassilon for small mercies."

Ten cleared his throat and scratched at his hair. "Right. So let's not waste any time. The sooner we can get what we came for, the sooner we can leave." He leapt across the space between the two TARDIS machines as though the floor outside was hot lava, and slapped a manly slap against eleven's shoulder. "Let's get some set up done."

"Yeah," Eleven muttered as he stepped back into the TARDIS behind his brother.

Rose and Rory looked at the now empty doorway with high brows of confusion. Rory voiced the thought on both minds. "Is it just me, or do the both of them look almost _scared_ to be here?"

Rose shook her head with a shrug. "I don't know what's wrong. I thought they'd be thrilled to be back home."

Rory let his brow crease in concern. "I don't like that they seem to be so uncomfortable, Rose."

"I know," she agreed softly. "When they're not at ease, things tend to go sideways." She rubbed at his arm. "Maybe he just doesn't get along with the family. I know that Christmas at the old Tyler house could get heated when Nanna and Pop were still alive and we all had to get together."

"Yeah. True."

"I can try to talk to the Doctor a little later and see what I can get out of him." She shrugged an apologetic shoulder. "But you know the Doctor, if he doesn't want to talk about it, he won't."

"I'd appreciate it." He swallowed and looked to River and Amy. "They're my life, Rose. I want them safe."

"The Doctor does as well. Remember that."

There was a whir of softly spinning gears and rubber wheels on wooden flooring behind them, and both Rory and Rose turned to investigate. Their eyes were wide, but they were hardly surprised to see a creature that was obviously an android, but had taken pains to humanize itself.

Rose smiled as she moved around it, analyzing its shape and structure. "Now _this_," she breathed in awe. "_This_ is very impressive."

"And, I hope, friendly," River said curiously as she took a walk around the android. "Cute, though."

Rose looked with a smile into its glassy eyes. "Hello. Are you friendly; or are you going to go all blue eye on me and yell _Exterminate_?"

The android seemed to be tightly focused on Rose as it rolled toward her. "You have regenerated, my mistress."

Rose coughed with a wide open smile. "Oh. That's very clever of you to notice. How'd you know that?" She shifted the seat of her head toward the TARDIS doors, but kept her eyes on the android. She called lightly to the Doctor. "Doctor. You have to see this."

"Be right out," Ten called out. "Just stay in the main hall and don't wander off."

"That goes for you too, Amy," Eleven warned from within the TARDIS. "Stay put."

The Android kept its focus on Rose. "Will I arrange transport for you to join the cousins at Arcadia, Mistress Marissa, or do you intend on retiring to your room?"

"Oh," she sang. "You've got me mixed up with someone else little Robot." She petted it on the head. "But carry on. You'll find who you're looking for soon enough."

"I don't understand," it answered along a monotone voice. "Why does Mistress mock me?"

Ten finally stepped out of the TARDIS. His focus was tight on two pairs of black horn-rimmed glasses and he only noticed the presence of the android ten inches before he collided with it. His face immediately broke out into a wide grin. "Well look at you," he practically cheered as he dropped into a crouch and gave the machine a once-over. "I didn't expect to see you here, you old tin can. You've got to be, _well_, at least eight hundred and fifty years old now." He looked up at the TARDIS. "Hey Bowtie. Get out here and look at this. Gaeford is still roaming Lungbarrow's halls."

"Really?" Eleven asked as he stepped out of the TARDIS carrying two monitors. His face brightened to see the android. "Well look at that."

"Okay," Rose hazarded. "What is it?"

"Oh," Ten answered as he stood up and blew a mouthful of air through his lips. He rubbed at the back of his head. "This old thing was one of my first projects before I went into the Academy. My tutor didn't believe that I was properly focusing on my studies on the provenance of Gallifreyan culture because I was always scratching, drawing, running off. As a challenge, he tasked me with creating a servant android while we were studying just to keep my hands occupied. Gaeford here was the result." He grinned. "And if I do say so, he's pretty impressive."

Amy frowned in thought and tilted her head curiously. "And you were _how old again _when you entered the Academy?"

"Eight."

"And you made this thing before you were eight years old?"

"You seem surprised," Eleven noted. "It shouldn't really be so surprising, considering what you see me put together on a weekly basis."

"Yeah," she breathed as she pulled her hair back from her face and held it in a tail behind her head. "But what you usually put together is a little on the cruder side."

He swept his arm through the air around them. "Lungbarrow, where any and all necessary items are available at any time." He then pointed to the TARDIS. "My TARDIS, where I have to make do with whatever odds and ends are available." He shrugged. "They may be crudely assembled, but they work as well as the streamlined versions."

"I'm not saying that they don't, Doctor." She smiled an innocent smile. "I think you're very brilliant and very handy." Her eyes widened and she nudged him with her elbow. "And it looks like your robot has developed a crush – like maker like robot, yeah?"

The android continued to follow Rose around as she skipped from side to side and walked around the Doctors. "It's shadowing me, Doctor. Why?"

"That's a good question," Ten remarked with a rub at his jaw. "I designed this for my mother to help her out when my brother came along." He tapped at its head. "It is almost a century old," he mused. "Probably a couple of circuits are malfunctioning."

"Well," Amy teased. "I guess they just don't make things like they used to, yeah?"

"Oh hardie har har."

"It called me Marissa," Rose said with a rub at her own jaw. "Is that Mother's name?"

"Not anymore," Eleven groused. "When father's name was taken from him, she discarded hers, also. She hasn't been called Marissa in seven hundred years." He shrugged. "At least not that she'd answer to. I believe that only Rassilon still calls her by her given name."

"And the robot, too, apparently," Rose noted.

"I'll take a look at it, later," Ten suggested. "I'll give it an upgrade for her." He inhaled a deep breath and looked upward to the team. "So. Are we ready to send you girls to the Academy?"

"Can I call in sick," Rose queried.

"Not on your first day," he replied with a shake of his head. "Oh come on, Rose. You'll have fun. I promise."

River threaded her arm through Rose's. "We're going to have a blast," she said with a chuckle. "I'm looking forward to it." Her eyes looked up to the Doctors. "What time are we here?"

"About fifty years before the start of the Time War," Eleven answered. "It was the lull before the storm. Nothing of note to take our attentions away from we came here to do."

"Promise?"

"We both promise," Eleven vowed. "We took care in choosing the best date for landing."

"And besides," Ten assured as he thumbed back to the two TARDIS machines. "Those girls wouldn't let us fly in to trouble."

All four of the companions let out laughs.

"Okay, not into trouble on Gallifrey," he amended. "Now come on. Go get dressed into your Academy robes. Bowtie and I will set you up with transport and get ourselves together here."

"Transport," River asked with disappointment. "You mean we can't take one of the girls with us?" She thumbed back to the bluest of the TARDIS machines.

"No," both Doctors answered simultaneously.

"Aww," she whined with a stomp of her foot. "But I bet all the other parents let their Time brats take their TARDIS to school."

Ten opened his mouth and lifted a finger with full intent to argue. Eleven stopped him with a shake of his head as he pushed Ten's hand down. "Don't engage. Just don't."

"Sharp wit?"

"Like a blade."

"No hope in winning?"

"None."

"Which means the faculty at Cadon…?"

Eleven laughed. "Oh, they're done for."


	35. Quantum Mathematics

A/N: As always, I'm not a genius, and I rely rather heavily on Wikipedia and google to help me make the tech/sciency stuff look at least a little it right. I am not a physics brain (Biology, yes, Physics, no), and so I've done another bluff job to get it right. I hope it makes sense. Yes. This does take us somewhere. Points and bibs and bobs that will all lead to an unlikely allegiance…

The professor's name is actually pronounceable… I just whacked together a bunch of made up alien-like names… hahaha

~~oooOOOooo~~

The Mount Cadon campus of the Time Lord Academy was something to be seen. Much like the sentient home of Lungbarrow, the facility's architecture was a woven tapestry of majestic tall trees. Some of the twisting columnar branches were white, some were brown, and some even had its own natural mosaic multi coloured texture. The grounds of the building were littered with fallen leaves of both silver and a glassy transparency that glittered atop of the rusty red grasses and mottled grey stonework of the pathways.

Students of all ages, some mere children, others reaching their more silver years, milled around the campus. Age and gender did not seem to be a factor amongst the gathered groupings within the large student population. Several gatherings held pupils encompassing every age group and gender that were engaged in tightly civilized and intelligent conversation.

River Song and Rose stepped cautiously onto the campus grounds. Their focus was tight, their discomfort palpable. Even River Song, the unflappable and unstoppable fireball, was feeling slightly out of her league amongst the brightest of the Time Lord race. She knew that not all Time Lord Applicants were successfully admitted into the Academy. The testing criteria was intensive and sometimes cruel. Only a third of applicants actually made it to enrollment.

She should have felt pretty chuffed that she was among the Time Lord Elite. Of course she was very clever with intelligence that was off the scale against any human residing on planet Earth – but was she a match for a Lord of Time in training? Would this day come down to a battle of wits over intelligence just to make it through?

Her gaze fell to Rose, who gnawed nervously on her thumbnail as she looked about the place with terror. "Go into this like you're on a Torchwood assignment," she advised as she clutched Rose's wrist to remove her thumbnail from her mouth. "You've been assigned a covert mission on an alien planet…"

"Full of brilliant men and women…" she paused as a child no older than ten walked by her, his nose buried in a Quantum Mechanics text book. Her finger jutted toward him. "A kid, River. A kid!" She slumped and moaned. "I routinely make the Doctor look at me like I'm dribbling on my shirt, what hope do I have against and entire school of _Doctors_?"

"I do no such thing," the Doctor argued into her ear via the communications earpieces he'd insisted that they wear. "I happen to think you're brilliant."

Rose merely slid a look toward River and adjusted the seat of the thick horn rimmed glasses on the bridge of her nose. She rolled her eyes and mouthed. _"Yeah, right. Whatever."_

"I can see you, Rose," he clarified. "Everything. Remember. Whatever you two see, so do we."

"Which will be very important to remember if either of us have to use the bathroom," River muttered with mild distraction as she let her eyes trail over the rather impressive form of another of the students. She smiled at him as he offered her a friendly grin. "Oh. Yes. Please." She nudged Rose with her elbow. "It's not _all _bad."

Rose followed River's gaze and tilted her head to appreciate the confident swagger of a very attractive dark-haired Time Lord. "Oh. My. Well. We need someone to show us around, don't we?"

"We're both sitting right here," the Doctor groused. "Trying really hard not to be offended. Care to focus?"

"Oh," River breathed appreciatively. "I'm _very_ focused."

"On your task," he snapped. "Not on the availability of the male cadets."

"Bit of a jealous streak coming out, I see, my loves," River remarked with amusement as they walked through an ornate pair of doors to lead them into the main building. She gasped. "Just when you think that nothing on this planet could get more spectacular…"

"This place appears," Rose finished for her. "Oh. Doctor. Where's your hand when I want it? _You_ should be showing me around this place, not letting us just wander about on our own."

"I'll make it up to you, I promise."

"Sure you will," she sighed softly. She dropped her eyes to the folder she held in her arms to look at their schedule. "Quantum Mathematics? Are you bloody kidding me?" She whimpered painfully.

"Time Lords don't whimper," the Doctor warned lightly.

"This Time _Lady_ will most definitely whimper," she corrected. "And whimper when she damn well feels like it." She strode with deliberate arrogance through the lecture hall doors. She offered the professor a respectful nod upon entering the room. "I hate the both of you right now. Hate. Considering divorce proceedings."

"That's not funny."

"Who said I was joking?"

River took her hand and tugged her to a pair of available seats just left of the middle aisle. "Don't worry. You'll be fine. We'll just hide in the lecture Hall and don't get noticed."

~~oooOOOooo~~

On a long table set up across the open doors of both TARDIS machines Ten had a pile of electronics. The same litter was in his lap. He had a pair of wires hanging out from between his teeth, and his sonic screwdriver whirred noisily. In a seat beside him, Eleven was in much the same position. Both Doctors were in the midst of creating what they believed to be the necessary gadgetry for the next phase of their plan.

They were both tightly focused on the projects at hand, but that didn't in any way diminish their focus of the twin monitors in front of them. Each monitor received a separate video feed from Cadon from the eye glasses the Doctors had insisted that the girls wear. The image was crisp, lag was minimal, and allowed them both to look that little bit deeper beyond the vision of the girls.

The microphones feeding the sound transmission was a small port on the right hand side of the frames, where it kissed at their cheek. It was in the perfect position to catch any and all sounds uttered by the girls, even the very quietest of whispers.

The Doctors made sure to cover off the bases. They wanted ears on to any and all worries and observations. They wanted to know the exact infliction in their tone so that they could, and _would_ move quickly if things got out of hand.

…Which they wouldn't. Nope. Everything was going to go nice and smooth.

Ten wasn't hotly impressed at Rose's absolute discomfort at being at Cadon. She'd been thrown into far more volatile situations with far less backup protection available and had never uttered a single complaint. He didn't want to acknowledge that he was slightly disappointed, but he would definitely admit to being concerned as to the reasons behind her discomfort. She had no reason to be worried. He and the Eleventh Doctor were both more that adequately equipped to help her through any of the tough questions that could be thrown her way.

He bit hard on the wires between his teeth as he tightened his focus on the monitor showing her feed.

"What do you think," he asked Eleven quietly. "Does she know something that we don't?"

Eleven swiped his fringe from his eyes and looked up at the monitor. "She's got our mother's consciousness running through her mind. There's a pretty good chance that she's seeing something we aren't."

"Mum is a better telepath than we are." He hated to admit that. "Being surrounded by the Prydon energies from the mountain might be throwing some timeline images at her that could be spooking her, I suppose." He shook his head at himself. "We haven't exactly been giving her any exercises to help her learn to control it."

"Yes, well, perhaps you can work with her on that when you get back to Pete's World." Eleven straightened out a set of blue and red wires and measured them for length. "But let's not jump to conclusions. Her dealings with Time Lords hasn't been particularly positive to this point." He looked at the monitor. "I wouldn't blame her for being apprehensive, and neither should you. Look at us. We're so blasted panicked at the thought that we might bump into a cousin that we planned the landing for the Solstice – partway into the Academic year."

"and if we're worried…"

"Rose is going to pick up on it and react," Eleven finished. "One of the perils of a pairing bond, brother."

"That's very true." Ten tapped at the monitor ahead of him as Rose's feed momentarily flickered. "Oh. No."

Eleven looked up quickly. "What's wro … Oh No." He pointed to the screen and looked quickly to his brother. "Lovolruvalliplagnornelanlorir. Isn't he dead yet? He's got to be almost three thousand years old."

Ten covered his eyes in his hand for a moment. "He was already in his second thousand year when he tortured us at the Academy." He let the hand fall to cover his mouth and let out a long breath. "He can smell fear a mile away. If he catches even a whiff that Rose is feeling uncomfortable, he's going to go on the attack." He poked hard at the screen. "He looked at her. He's looking directly at her. _Oh_," he huffed on a dangerously breathy laugh. "He's found his plaything today. Going after the new kid. That's low."

"What lecture is this," Eleven spat in panic.

"Quantum Mathematics – Measurements in Quantum Mechanics."

"Good. Good. We're pretty strong in that field." He nodded feverishly and flicked on their muted microphone to establish connection. "Rose, sweetheart. You keep your ears on us, okay."

"Yeah, okay," she responded in clipped tones. "Why?"

"Your professor, Lovolruvalliplagnornelanlorir…"

"Shit, that's his name?"

"What did you think it was?"

"His home planet?"

"He's a Time Lord, he's from Gallifrey."

"Okay, so go on?"

"Lovolruvalliplagnornelanlorir was a professor back in our day, and wasn't a pleasant Lord to study under. I almost quit the Academy about four times because of him."

"Oh. Just. Great." A snort came down the line. "But that's okay. River's armed. We should be okay to seek vengeance for his torturing your younger self_. If you want_. We're playing hide and seek in the lecture Hall for now, so hopefully he won't notice us."

"I'm afraid you've already been quite noticed, Rose." He cleared his throat. "We suspect that he might press upon you ladies today to answer a few of his tougher questions."

"Shit."

"Yes. And then some," Ten replied. "But you are in luck, ladies. The Doctor and I happen to be specialists in Quantum Mathematics. Well, we have to be, don't we? Pilots of the TARDIS and all, travelers throughout time and space. Knowing a thing or two about how this whole hop skipping and jumping in between times and the theoretical knowledge behind the …"

"Doctor!" Her voice was a very harsh whisper. "I love you. Normally I love your rambling, too. But if you think you're going to get me through this then you are going to have to learn to: Slow. It. Down."

"Which is why I'll do the talking," Eleven muttered. "Sandshoes here does tend to rattle it all off a bit too quickly."

Ten just rolled his eyes.

"But for now, Ladies," Eleven warned. "You might want to listen to Lovolruvalliplagnornelanlorir. If he thinks that you're not listening, then he'll throw a theory at you and keep you standing at the front of the entire Quantum Mathematics lecture hall until you complete the equation to prove it."

"And if I can't?"

"Yes. Well." He looked at Ten. "We were lucky enough that we knew the equation, so we never did find out."

"Fine."

"Oh she's not happy," Ten muttered as he propped his elbow up on the table, slipped on his glasses, and cupped his chin in his hand to focus tightly on the screen and the lecture being held.

Eleven dropped into an identical position at his side. "Then you best use that big Time Lord brain of yours and figure out a spectacular way of making it up to her."

"Already considering options," he hissed as he leaned forward to increase the volume so they could hear much more clearly. "Oh," he suddenly breathed with a gleeful giggle. "Measurement probabilities and wavelength collapse. I love this stuff."

"Time Lord fist bump," Eleven chuckled as he distractedly pointed a fist to his brother. Ten quickly bumped it with his own. The both hissed a fairly quiet sound of explosion and then leaned a few inches closer to the monitors to partake in the morning lecture.

An hour into the lecture, and all seemed to be smoothly rattling along. Ten had taken to taking extensive notes as newer theories and working hypotheses were presented. Eleven had fallen into a fascinated lean with his chin seated in both hands, his jaw hung open and his eyes were wide and locked on the monitors. Both Doctors found themselves uttering desperate pleas every time one of the girls took their eyes off the professor to either look at the ceiling or to look at each other in boredom.

"Come on, girls," Ten moaned with obvious jealousy. "This is great stuff."

"Doctor," Rose whispered softly. "When you decided to tutor me in high school, why wasn't it physics? A base understanding would have helped me latch on to any part of this."

"Focus, Rose," Eleven urged softly.

Both Doctors suddenly sat up straight in their chairs as the monitors shows the swift approach of the professor. He strode directly to where Rose was seated and glared at her. The glare had both men slide back in their chairs as though to back away as far as possible.

"Do you feel as though my lecture is not stimulating enough to maintain your focus, young Lady?"

She muttered a swear under her breath.

"Choose your words really carefully," Ten warned fast. "Swearing is not an option."

"Well," Lovolruvalliplagnornelanlorir demanded hotly. "I posed a question to you. What is your response?"

"My response," She began slowly, with slight unsureness, "Is best reserved for outside of the lecture hall. As a mark of respect to our honoured professor, of course."

This seemed to intrigue the Professor. "A challenge, then, pupil?"

Both Doctors leaned their cheeks on their fists to watch how this was going to play out. Rose was a decent bluffer, but this was set to completely push her skills to the limit.

"Are we going to help her out," Ten queried Eleven.

"Let's see where she's going with this first. If we need in, we'll jump in."

"Not so much a challenge," Rose offered with a clearing of her throat. "more of a query regarding the most recent advancements of the theoretical framework for wavelength collapse."

"Then feel free to share your thoughts with our peers." He folded thick arms across his chest. "You are Rose, of Lungbarrow, yes?"

She nodded. "If our honoured professor gives permission to be questioned. It has been recently documented that Earth studies have used quantum decoherence to provide an explanation for the absence of quantum coherence after measurement." She took a breath. "It is believed that Decoherence correctly predicts the form and probability distribution of the final eigenstates, and explains the apparent randomness of the choice of final state in terms of einselection. Your lecture didn't take that into consideration. In fact you stated quite clearly and without room for interpretation otherwise that wavelength collapse continues to raise serious concerns regarding the measurement problem."

There were cheers from both Doctors as they high-fived each other. "That's my beautiful Rose," Ten purred through the mic. "I told you. You're brilliant. Absolutely _brilliant_."

Elation was short lived, however, as Lovolruvalliplagnornelanlorir's expression morphed to insulted anger. "Are you another of my pupils who is obsessed with that insignificant little green planet? Earth," he bellowed as he turned to walk down the centre aisle stairs. He paused to look up at her. "You will follow me Rose of Lungbarrow."

She looked with desperation to River, who had shrank apologetically into her chair. _Help me, Doctor_ she mouthed to River before she straightened her Prydon Cadet robes and followed the professor.

Lovolruvalliplagnornelanlorir continued to project his deep and thundering voice toward all pupils as he dismissed Rose's claim of Earthen Scientists. He led Rose to a large whiteboard and dramatically flipped it around to reveal a very small problem equation. With a smile he handed her a whiteboard marker and bowed.

"There is still another forty five minutes until the end of this session. Using this Earth Science that you so eloquently quoted, I ask that you provide a solution."

Rose gulped rather loudly. "Oh. Sure. Yes. Of course."

"Do know, pupil, that this problem equation has only ever been solved by one of my students." He patted her condescendingly on her shoulder. "In over two thousand years of instructing Cadon students, only one. I don't presume that you will be my second, but please try."

Rose stared at the equation. "Please, boys. Please tell me that the pupil who solved this equation was you."

Eleven moved in close to the monitor, unsurprised that Ten was mirroring his exact movements. Together they analyzed the equation.

"No," Ten muttered. "Not this one."

"Master was the one who solved that one," Eleven mused thoughtfully. "but give us a moment to talk and let us see what we can come up with." He looked to Ten. "Factoring in Earth formulas as well, of course."

"Don't be too long," she pleaded. "They're all on the staredown right now. I'm not a fan of being front and centre. That's more of a River thing."

The two Doctors quietly spoke between the two of them. Ten jutting down quick points and notes, Eleven working through the numbers on a separate sheet of paper. After approximately seven minutes and thirteen seconds, Ten let out a single laugh of victory.

"Okay, Rose, honey. We've got it. You ready?"

"You solved it?" she squeaked quietly.

"Of course we did," he huffed as though somewhat insulted she thought otherwise. "Walk in the park. Now. Listen closely…"

It took almost the full forty five minutes to decipher the various equation information provided by both Doctors and draw it accurately on the board. When she was finished, she capped the marker and stood back to admire the Doctor's work.

"My clever boys," she whispered. She readied to set the marker back into the cradle, but paused with a deep tilt of her head. "Oh. Yes. Definitely," she purred in a giggle. "Plenty of room for that."

The Doctors watched with curiosity as Rose returned to the board and began to draw in the blank space remaining on the board. A series of loops and circles and more circles within circles. She added key dots, and then the finishing lines, and stepped back.

Now satisfied, she recapped the marker and set it on the cradle. She gave a respectful bow to the Professor. "I believe you will find your problem solved – using Earth theoretical principals in combination with accepted Gallifreyean methods."

His eyes flicked to the board and locked on the Circular Gallifreyan message that finalized her presentation. "What is it you have signed your problem with, pupil?"

She gave him her most innocent stare, trying hard to ignore the muffled laughter from River Song in the gallery. "It's an Earth quote I have spelled phoenetically into Gallifreyan for you, Honoured Professor. I believe the language wholly appropriate given that I have provided solution using theories of Earth scientists."

Lovolruvalliplagnornelanlorir took moment to carefully sound out the letters. "Get stuffed, you daft twat." He frowned. "And this translates to?"

"It translates to: _Thank you, Honoured teacher_," she lied with a bow. "Now, may I be excused?"

"You may," Lovolruvalliplagnornelanlorir replied sternly. "Rose of Lungbarrow, I look forward to analyzing your continued progress."

The two Doctors were very quiet. Their lips were identically pursed and their expressions close to completely neutral. With slow and deliberate movements they turned toward each other and then continued to turn to look back at their silent TARDIS machines.

"Oh," Ten growled darkly. "I don't approve. Not at all. Not in the slightest." He flicked his finger in between the two machines. "Whichever one of the two of you is responsible for that, there will be repurcussions."

"They're both looking pretty smug," Eleven muttered with an unimpressed look.

"You can just see them high-fiving each other, can't you?"

"Both of you," Eleven charged. "Bad girls."

~~oooOOOooo~~

Lovolruvalliplagnornelanlorir stayed behind in the lecture hall after the last of the cadets had exited. He had his back hunched and his hands pressed into the table top when his assistant, a Time Lady with crystal green eyes, raven hair and blood red smile, stepped in to provide him with his afternoon schedule.

"Is everything fine with you, Lovol," she asked with intimate familiarity in her tone of voice. "What do you need?"

"Sylvania," he answered gruffly. "Please clear my schedule for this afternoon. I must speak with Arcadia as soon as possible."

Sylvania touched tenderly at his arm. "I can make those arrangements for you immediately. Is all okay?"

He shuddered. "I just felt as though time herself just walked into my Lecture hall."

"Don't be so foolish," she said with a soft laugh. "Lovol, my dear. I think that you've been working too hard."

"I still wish to discuss. Please make the arrangements."

"Yes, Lovol."


	36. Wormhole

A/N: For this chapter I most certainly apologise to you all. It may seem right outta left field, and that's, _well_, because it is. I didn't plan this, not at all, it just happened. It seriously _just happened_. I don't know what evil demon possessed me, but I pulled out the laptop, listened to some really cheesy 80's pop music on my iPhone, and this fell from my fingers.

And now the Universe has to build around this chapter … because it changed a thing or two…

Ahh. Yes. I'm going with _Arkytior_ meaning _Rose_ on Gallifrey, 'kay? Go along with me on this…

~~oooOOOooo~~

The young boy meandered with practiced autonomy along the majestic wide corridors of the Mount Cadon Academy Campus. His nose was undistractedly buried inside his Quantum Mathematics textbook, and his focus too tight to the text that he was blind to anything else around him. Other cadets merely stepped out of his way as their paths met or crossed, and he paid no mind to it. He had to find the answer to the question posed by that pink and yellow Time Girl to their honoured professor during the lecture. Lovolruvalliplagnornelanlorir's expression to that Time Girl's accusation that he'd missed some interstellar theories in his lecture was unmistakable. She knew something that he didn't.

The young boy may only be seated on the day of the ninth anniversary of his looming, and only one celestial year into his study at the Academy, but he knew Lovolruvalliplagnornelanlorir's reputation intimately. The professor with over two thousand years of teaching at the Academy had rarely been challenged. On those very rare occasions where he had received a challenging remark from one of his pupils, that pupil had been rather tersely and publically reprimanded.

…But not the new girl. She had challenged, and she had won. Even answering the impossible equation. Using _Alien_ theories. Very intriguing indeed.

Now who was she, this _Arkytior of Lungbarrow_?

_Arkytior of Lungbarrow. _At least, that's how he heard the name. He had to have heard that wrong, though. He was the second to the last of the cousins to be loomed at Lungbarrow. The last born member of a family home in complete disarray. She couldn't be a long lost cousin of his. Unfortunately, he knew all of his cousins too well, and none of them resembled a yellow-haired girl. A recent possible regeneration, perhaps? He would have considered that option likely if any of his cousins dared to partake in dangerous adventure that might one day result in a regeneration. They were far too lazy and self-absorbed for that. He hadn't been advised of any deathdays in the house, so no replacements would have been approved.

Or perhaps she was newly paired from a different house. He felt immediate pity for her and put a curse on her behalf to whatever universal forces had deemed a pairing between her and one of his cousins was necessary if that was the case.

_Of course. All Irrelevant, really, to a nine-year old_. He thought in his mind as he scanned the text in search of the solution to his mind's desperate need to have all of the answers. He licked at the side of his mouth in thought as he flicked the page and looked through a page of figures, equations, symbols and definitions.

A shrill, but by no means annoying, laugh took his attention off the book a moment. The laughter was paired with another, huskier sound of amusement, and in short time the two sounds melded into a singular symphonic note that echoed from wall to wall. Laughter wasn't something he typically heard in the halls of Cadon, and so he was pressed to investigate. His eyes fell on the doorway to the female bathroom, and to the highly amused forms of the two new girls on campus.

The one with the straight hair – Arkytior – appeared to be almost breathless as she clutched her chest. Her peach coloured lips stretched wide across her face to bare magnificently white teeth parted in laughter. Her friend, slightly older looking, with tightly coiled curls in her blonde hair, was just as amused, however, he couldn't help but note the deep crimson hue in her cheeks.

Her muttering about forgetting to remove her glasses prior to using the facilities, and the meaning behind that was lost to the young boy. But it seemed only to intensify Arkytior's hilarity toward the situation. Her laughter, her absolute brilliant delight, ticked slightly at the edge of his mouth. The way she held at her chest as her eyes watered and how she lightly bounced on her feet to sway her golden hair, had a slight hypnotically addicting quality to it.

He couldn't help it. He broke out into a smile and pulled his open text book into his chest as he watched. The only place he ever saw happiness like that was in the eyes of his mother when father was near. Their whispered little secrets and affectionate play always brought out that light in her.

And oh, how he missed his parents right now. Unseen in months as they journeyed a mission for Council. He had hoped that they would have returned to Gallifrey in time for his _loomday_ – as his mother jokingly called it. While such celebrations were absent in Gallifreyan society, his mother was particularly insistent on celebrating these anniversaries. She would be here if she could. He knew that. She would make sure to take him to his favourite place in the bluffs, where they would look over the forests below the mountain under the light of the full moon in the sky when she returned. She would sing that cheesy little song she said that she learned from her travels to the Milky Way Galaxy across the universe. Sing that cheesy little song as she held out a small cake lit with a single candle and tell him to make a wish as he extinguished it with a breath.

Such a strange little custom, but he loved it.

He found himself singing the little ditty in his head as he closed his eyes and imagined the laughter from the two girls about twenty feet away from him to be the laughter of his mother.

_Happy loomday to me_…

There was a hard shove against his shoulder, and the young boy was thrown forward. He stumbled lightly in his step and gasped as his book spilled to the floor.

"Wormhole," another Cadet called with a grunt. "Why don't you watch where you're standing?"

"I've told you plenty of times, Arkhem, that my name is not _Wormhole_," he returned dryly without raising his head as he crouched down to collect his book. His face was set in a frown as he tried to smooth out the creases in the paper. "Ruined."

Arkhem pulled the young boy to a stand with a sharp tug on his ear. "You prefer _Snail_?"

"I prefer my name," he answered back. He let his eyes scrape up to his older cousin's face and looked through a thick sandy-coloured fringe at him. "You know it. Try using it."

"Feeling a little snippy today are you," Arkhem shot back with curled lip. He looked to pair of cadets who were obviously friends. "Looks like Wormhole might have finally grown himself a pair." He shoved at his shoulder. "Asking for a hiding, you are."

"I'm just asking for you to leave me alone," he answered back quietly. "Don't you have a class to attend?"

"Lunch time," Arkhem muttered as he chewed on his thumbnail and eyeballed a female cadet as she passed. He waggled a brow at her as she blinked with an appreciative smile and leaned back slightly to his friends. "And that would be _who_?"

"Cintocet of Fordfarding," his friend answered. "Betrothed to a member of the house of Oakdown, apparently." He shrugged. "Although that could be just society rumour."

"Not a rumour," the young boy answered quietly, his head still downcast. "The entire Academy is talking about it."

Arkhem snapped his head down. "Did I say you could speak, Wormhole?"

He huffed lightly in annoyance. "My apology for the disrespect, cousin."

Arkhem snatched the boy by the shoulder of his dark maroon cadet tunic and practically lifted him as he moved him from the centre of the hallway toward the wall. "Disrespect to one of your elders in a public forum, Wormhole. What does that mean?"

"I'm close to guessing," he replied dejectedly. He looked up pleadingly, his whole stature shrinking under the glare of his cousin. "Please, Cousin. Spare me the heavy hand."

He threw the young boy against the wall. "And why would I spare you that?"

"Because I would like to have one day where I am not accosted by my elder cousins and humiliated in front of the entire student body." He exhaled a long suffering breath. "Just one."

Arkhem seemed to consider the request for a moment. He cupped at his chin and looked upward at the monumentally high ceilings above them. He let his eyes trail down the wall, and to the boy standing in front of him with his head down and his shoulders slumped. "I've considered your request," he said along a stern breath.

The young boy waited. The longer the pause, the tighter his brows knitted together. "And?"

"And," Arkhem rumbled along a sneer. "Not today, Wormhole." He gave the young boy a double-fisted shove at his shoulders.

The boy let out a yelp as he stumbled backward. His feet caught at the long drag of the robe worn over his tunic, and he stumbled awkwardly to the ground. His books and papers spilled to the floor around him. He gasped as he struggled around thick fabric as his Cousin rounded on him.

A sharp demand thundered in a hot female voice as a pair of blonde cadets shot by him; their trajectory toward the three large male cadets. The cry was such, and the movement of the girls so swift, that the young boy had to gasp. If he ever needed the perfect example to illustrate the Doppler Effect, he just received it.

"What the Hell do you think you're doing," Rose hollered as she drove both hands into the chest of Arkhem. "Picking on a child?"

"Does it make you feel like a big man," River Song demanded with absolute disgust, "to pick on a young child?"

Arkhem quickly seized his balance and curled a lip at the two women. "This is none of your concern," he snapped. "This is house business, and I'll ask you to remain out of it."

"Not gonna happen," River Song snarled.

"You wanna take on him," Rose added. "Then you're going to have to go through the two of us." She looked with belated question to River Song. "Yeah, both of us, right?"

"Oh," she growled with a laugh. "So right you are." She flicked her hair with threatening arrogance. "Or are you too coward to take on an adult woman?"

"Coward enough to lay hands on a child," Rose muttered as she took a step forward and raised up onto her toes to attempt to bring herself to roughly the same height of Arkhem. Unfortunately she fell almost six inches too short to achieve it. "So? What about it? You wanna try pounding on a pair of Time Girls instead of a young child." She looked at the group. "Three against two. I think we're good for numbers."

River Song actually cracked her knuckles. "Nah, Rose. They're sorely outnumbered."

Arkhem puffed himself up and loomed over Rose as best he could. He had the gall to flick at her hair in a condescending gesture. "Now. Be a good girl, and get out of my way. It would serve you well to mind your manners. This is between Wormhole and I."

She shook her head. "No. It isn't." she took a couple of steps backward, extending her hands behind her in search of the young boy so that she wouldn't trip over him. "See. Wormhole – and really, what kind of name is that for a child – is now under my protection."

"And mine," River added sharply. "So be a good little Time Brat and sod off, before you find out what we Time Girls are truly capable of."

Arkhem slapped at his friend's chest with the back of his hand and then pointed toward the pair. "If you think this is over," he warned. "You're mistaken."

"Bring it," River growled in classic Earth Gangsta style, complete with a double-handed slap to her chest.

Rose waited until she saw their retreating forms before she quickly spun in place and dropped onto her knees in front of the young boy. Her movements were a flurry of activity as she checked him out for any sign of injury. "Are you okay, little Time Lord," she queried tenderly as she lightly cupped his cheeks in her hands and looked into his face. "Did they hurt you?"

His eyes were horrifically wide, stunned, and confused. "Thank you," he managed with a croak. "You didn't have to do that."

River had gathered up the bulk of his papers and had stuffed them none too neatly into his text book. "No," she assured softly. "But we wanted to. Grown men picking on a young boy, it's deplorable."

"It's not so bad," he answered with a lowered head as he took his book and papers from River Song and held it against his chest. "I'm used to it." He scratched at his hair and looked around nervously. "But I thank you for your help." He tried to bring himself to a stand, but stumbled again as he tripped on his robes. He rolled his eyes and shook his head. "By, Rassilon, really?"

Rose looked up to River Song and flicked her eyes downward in a demand for her to sit. She, herself, plonked her butt on the floor and crossed her legs in a lotus fold. She smiled warmly as she leaned her elbows into her knees and leaned forward with a cheeky smile. "Looks a good a place as any to take the load off."

The young lad gave a startled look. His surprise deepened to see River Song adopt an identical seat of crossed legs, but leaned backward with her palms into the floor instead of a forward lean. "Oh. Uhm. This is most unusual."

"What," River asked with a smirk. "Sitting down?"

"No," he breathed carefully. "Sitting on the floor in the middle of the hall." He looked around with mild embarrassment at the passing students. "This is most undignified."

Rose shrugged with a tongue-in-teeth smile. "No chairs. Sore feet. What can ya do?"

"I suppose," he returned with a tilted head.

Rose took his hand and tugged lightly in a request for him to join them. In a second, he was on his own backside with his legs crossed in a forward lean.

"So," she began. "Who was that idiot, and why was he bullying you?"

The young boy closed in on himself at that moment. His body slouched forward and his arms moved into a tighter hold of himself. "It's nothing," he breathed. "Just a misunderstanding, really."

"It always is," River moaned facetiously. "And let me guess. All _your_ fault, right?"

"I shouldn't have disrespected him," he answered in a barely audible voice. "I should know better."

"No," Rose cooed softly. "_He_ shouldn't be disrespecting _you_." She dipped her head to try and coax him to look at her. "You know what my mum always said to me about bullies," she said as she caught the smallest glimmer off a pair of brown eyes hidden in the shadow of the slouch of his arms. "Bullies are just jealous. Jealous because you're smarter than they are, you're better looking than them, you're a nicer person than them…"

"Because they're a douchebag and you aren't," River song added. She rubbed at the boy's shoulder. "Do you know the best thing you can do about people like that?"

He lifted his head slightly. "What?"

"Ignore them," she offered. "They get a kick out of getting a reaction from you. If you just do the nonchalant shrug and turn away, then you'll find they'll lose interest after a try or two."

"Or three or four," Rose offered. "Hey. Let's not give him false hope here. Take it from someone who knows. There was more than one reason that I left High School before graduation."

The young boy looked at her with a furrowed brow. "High School?"

She waved her hand and shook her head. "Ahh. Never mind. Long story." She looked at his book. "So. Studying Quantum Mathematics." She couldn't help but chuckle. "Great. How old are you?"

"I am nine celestial cycles past my looming."

"Nine," Rose said with a high-toned voice and a nod of her head. "Nine, River. He's only nine! Studying the tough stuff!"

River noted the disbelief in her voice, and found herself holding much the same reaction. "I'm impressed, young man."

He shrugged. "Thanks. But there's no need to be impressed. It's pretty standard level curriculum for my age group." He rubbed at the back of his head. "Nothing special."

"Oh, but I bet you are," Rose challenged with a smile. She caught his disbelieving look and waggled her finger in a tut-tut side to side movement. "Don't try to convince me otherwise. I know special and brilliant when I see it. You, young Lord, are brilliant." She tipped her shoulder to her ear. "You'll probably change the world one day. No. Not just the world. The entire universe."

River nodded in agreement and thumbed up the corridor. "And assholes like your bully-friend back there will amount to nothing more important that a gnat's fart bubbling in a treacle pot."

The young boy started to laugh. Rose Moaned. "Oh that's true class right there, River. Flatulence, really?"

She winked and snapped a smile at the young boy clutching at his belly and laughing. "It doesn't matter what planet you're on, a fart will always be the wildest source of entertainment to any boy. Am I right?"

"You can't argue with the evidence," she sighed with a smile.

Seeing that the lad was smiling, the girls slowly drew themselves to a stand. Rose dropped her hand to offer to help the boy to his feet. He gladly slipped his hand into hers and pulled himself up. His face was slightly flushed from the laughter, and he seemed to have perked up.

"Well, little Lord," Rose said with a smile as he righted himself and got a steady foothold on the ground. "It was a pleasure to meet you. I hope that guy will leave you alone now."

"Are you leaving," he asked quietly. "Already?"

Rose scruffed at his hair. "As much as I'd love to cut class, hang around. Or head back home, kick some Time Lord asses." She frowned. "Hold on. Time Lords who have been too damn quiet for my liking."

"Yeah. I had noticed," River added as she tapped the receiver in her ear. "Did we lose you after bathroom gate, boys?"

A single clearing of a throat finally made it over the comms. "We're here." Ten's voice was quiet and slightly husky and croaked. "Still here."

The young boy looked at River with confusion. "Who are you talking to?"

"Noone," Rose sang with a light nudge at River with her shoulder. "She likes to talk to herself. She's a little nuts this one."

"Certifiable," River confirmed. She pinched at the lad's cheek. "Great to meet you, but we really do have to go. We've got another class to attend, then we have free time for a couple of hours."

"Looking forward to that," Rose muttered. She checked her schedule. "The Ancient Fighting Arts – Close Combat Weaponry Skills. Oh-Kay."

"Finally. Something interesting," River breathed with mild thrill. "Thanks boys."

The young lad spread a thrilled smile across his face. He put his hands on his hips to invite them to hook their arms through his."It looks like we're heading to the same class. Can I be honoured to escort you?"

"Sure," River sang with a smile as she hooked her arm into his. She had to lean just slightly to accept his offer. "Why not? We could use the help in navigating our way there, can't we, Rose?"

"Totally." Rose stood at his other side and threaded her arm though his as best she could.. "Lead the way, my Lord."

"I think we might find ourselves a little late," he observed as he heard the warning bell chime above their heads.

"Oh then," she said with a grin as she dipped her head closer to his. "Then there's only one thing we can do."

"What's that," he asked with a tilt of his head.

Rose dropped her hand to clutch his hand in hers. Her face broke out in a grin. "Run!"

~~oooOOOooo~~

Ten shook his head as he watched the feed coming from Cadon. The panic had both of his hearts thundering rapidly inside his chest. "How can this be?"

"I thought you said you checked the time coordinates," Eleven growled.

"I did," he argued. "Several times."

"Then how did we end up on Gallifrey Eight hundred and fifty years earlier?"

Ten stood up and paced. "I don't know. I don't know." He flicked a hand to Eleven. "You checked the coordinates as well. You programmed them into your TARDIS. You would've noticed if something wasn't right."

"Yeah," he answered with his forehead in his hand. "It was good. There was nothing wrong with those coordinates."

Ten shot a look to the TARDIS. "Which means conspiracy by TARDIS. Again," he snarled. "Why do you keep doing this," he demanded of the machine. "Why?"

"Because they had to," Eleven said with gently closed eyes. He breathed steadily. "Because I remember this. All of it."

"Me too. That's what's unnerving me."


	37. Rassilon

A/N: Took some time off. Kinda lost my drive there a little bit… Spent some time reading and reviewing some really awesome fanfics out there instead – whilst realizing that I kinda suck a little. But no foul. Effort #1 is usually on the suck-ass-side.

Holy craponastick are there some amazing fics out there, though.

And then after reading fics, I binged on season 2005 for a bit and came to realize that Nine actually treated Rose better than Ten did. True story. Nine obviously loved her. It was clear in every episode! And Jealous!Doctor … Nine did it best. Not the same passion from Ten, really. But, I'll binge on Season 2006 this week and reclaim my love of Ten and Rose.

So what am I doing here? Fixing my own mess, or making it worse? A little from column A and a little from Column B.

It'll make sense to you later .. it will … Promise…

~~oooOOOooo~~

He strode into the main campus administrative office with all of the grace and regality of an all-powerful Lord. Other Lords of Time stooped respectfully of his presence as he passed by with no words, and no graceful acknowledgement of their presence.

He drew appreciation of all forms from both Lords and Ladies alike. He knew of his power. He knew of his charm. He was more than aware of his attractiveness to the opposite sex – as much as was expressed in the light blushes and smiles of the administrative staff.

Rassilon paid no mind to any of the reactions to his presence at Cadon Campus. He was by no means expected; his current regeneration almost 900 years separated by future timelines to this current date; but he was not unwelcome by any means. Gallifrey being the gateway to all time and space, it wasn't out of the realm of possibility that a Lord could return to times gone by in order to answer to time's demands.

His gait was regal, his expression smugly imperial, as he breezed with an almost ghost-like glide across the floor toward the main meeting room within the deepest chamber of the facility. He let his fingertips stroke at his perfectly dimpled chin as he walked to within a group of older Lords.

"Greetings to you fellow Lords," he smoothed out along a deep voice. "I understand we have a disturbance on Campus that needs attention."

Lovolruvalliplagnornelanlorir bowed with respect. "Rassilon, I thank you for responding to our call across timelines."

Rasillon raised a hand to ask for him to stay at ease in his presence. "It is a call I have been expecting, old friend." He looked to the other three men in the gathering. "I understand that the prophesized one has arrived as predicted."

Lovolruvalliplagnornelanlorir indicated a seat at the circular table with a wave of his hand. "It would appear that she has arrived," he answered on a long tone. "In my lecture this morning I felt the distinct presence of Time and of TARDIS in my lecture hall."

"Really," Rassilon breathed. "So we have the daughters two, born of the womb across Space, on our campus?" His smile was wide and so very dark. "Is the young lord-master also on Campus today?"

Twonwang, a young-looking Lord with Blonde hair that whispered against high and prominent cheekbones, gave a firm nod. "It is my understanding that the necessary events to lead the young lord along his path are in place as scheduled." He shared a smile to another Lord – an older man with white hair and sunken features. "Is this correct?"

The Lord closed his eyes slowly to indicate the affirmative. "The young lad, called Wormhole…"

"That appellation will not be used in association with this Lord, Altamono," Rassilon snapped quickly.

"And what designation do we nominate for this child," Altamono snapped in response. "His name has been long removed from our tongue – at your demand – and you are disallowing us to refer to him by the name you say he's chosen in its place.."

"His designation," Rassilon warned, "will be of his chosing at his own time." He took a seat, finally, and flicked his long crimson robe behind him to fan out over the back of the chair. "For the purposes of any discussions relating to this child and his far-distant future, he will be referred to as the young Lord, as we will not give influence to his choice." He looked to Lovolruvalliplagnornelanlorir. "Lovol. Do express how you reached the conclusion that the prophesized ones have arrived at Cadon. And is the Doctor of her time also on campus?"

Lovolruvalliplagnornelanlorir shook his head. "I have not felt the presence of any Lord of Time on campus who is here out of his own time." He settled in his seat. "However, I confirm that we have two new female pupils, both out of time with claim to Lungbarrow."

Altamono snorted derisively. "There are no known female pupils from Lungbarrow on our registry. Has that house once again taken it upon themselves to defy the rules set by government to loom themselves new cousins?" His expression of disgust settled firmly across his face. "Lungbarrow is a joke."

Rassilon raised a hand for silence. "That house is to be respected, Altamono. As I would expect you would demand for yours. The girl called Rose was granted birthright to Lungbarrow at my order."

"A human," he snarled in response. "You granted birthright to a house of Prydon to a human child." He thumbed with disgust at his nose. "I question your decision, Grand Master, on allowing a child of a species so beneath the children of Gallifrey the rights of a Time Lord."

"A human," Rassilon corrected, "with strength such that she absorbed the Vortex of time, flew a TARDIS, and destroyed an entire Dalek fleet with the wave of her hand." His brow flicked in challenge. "Show me one daughter of Gallifrey who has performed such a feat."

"I'm sorry, what?"

Lovolruvalliplagnornelanlorir breathed out a hard breath. "That should be non-survivable."

"A Gallifreyean child alone cannot end the war that is to come," Rassilon warned darkly. "It will end because of a Time Lord's deep affections toward a child unaffected by our war, a child who does not hold the arrogance of a Lord of Gallifrey, a child who's only hold upon Gallifrey are the beating hearts of a Lord who would otherwise destroy us."

"The Wolf and the Storm," Lovolruvalliplagnornelanlorir breathed quietly.

Rassilon leaned down on the table on his elbow, his hand extended and balled into a fist. "Indeed the Wolf and the Storm," he growled. "A combination of powers that if not allied with us, can and will destroy our planet."

"And are you absolutely sure that you know who these children are," Twonwang asked gently. "We don't want to put our faith upon a human child if she isn't the one and risk ignoring the true savior of Gallifrey."

"Trust me," Rassilon muttered with a smirk. "I have seen the future, my fellow Lords. I have seen our destruction; and I have seen our salvation."

"Then if it is so written," Altamono challenged derisively, "Then what do you propose that we do? I will venture a guess that we don't meet at this time to raise our glasses and celebrate that this _human_ arrived at the correct moment in time." He pressed his finger into the table top. "And might I remind you, Rassilon, that no lesser species are permitted on Gallifrey, much less within our Academy walls."

"The humans are here with the permission of the High Council," Rassilon answered flatly. His eyes narrowed at Altamono. "Are you going to continue to question your Grand Master and the entire Council of Lords?"

"I will most certainly seek audience with them to express my _concerns_," he warned.

"An audience that I will arrange on your behalf," Rassilon snarled. "I will warn you, however, that any interference prior to your audience with council will be dealt with in the most severe manner."

"I'm sure it will." He folded his arms across his chest. "I will expect, then, that your interference, or assistance, will be withheld also."

"Where necessary," Rassilon ground out. "I will stand as an observer to Gallifrey's new daughters, however, lest there be any _unfortunate_ incidences that may well lead to the fall of the prophecy." His glare darkened. "I will not jeopardize Gallifrey and her children because of your intolerance to what you perceive lesser species."

"You can talk," he snapped. "You're the most intolerant of us all. These are your laws, Rassilon."

"Laws that I have since learned that require obvious adjustment."

"You should be embarrassed to hold the fate of Gallifrey in the hands of such a lesser species," Altamono snarled in return. "It is a disgrace. And it is blasphemy that you open the pathways to a Time Lord/Human bonding."

"It is a pair bonding of two Time Lords," Rassilon corrected. "The Wolf is not human, and hasn't been since the child absorbed the Time Vortex."

Lovolruvalliplagnornelanlorir ran his palm over his chin. "Texts suggest that the young Wolf was never completely human to begin with," he offered. "She was a child of Time born to human parents. Conceived on the eve of a solar flare that exploded across the universe."

"We will never know," Rassilon offered. His smile was, however, indicative of his thrill at the suggestion. "But that would explain the almost desperate attraction of a Time Lord. How can he not become besotted with Time herself?"

"The Time Lord who could never love," Lovolruvalliplagnornelanlorir said with a high brow. "Falling upon a devoted knee at the feet of Time."

"You are treading awfully close toward romanticism there, old friend." Rassilon chuckled. "Unbecoming of a Time Lord."

"Would you not fall in love with Time if she reached for you, my friend?"

"I would not be a Time Lord if I didn't."

Altamono slapped his palms into the table and pushed himself to a harsh stand. "This discussion is heading toward nowhere." He looked to the Lord who was so far from his own time. "Rassilon, while it is always a pleasure to have you honour us with your presence here at Cadon, it is unnecessary. The Wolf; this Rose of Lungbarrow, and her friend River of Lungbarrow will be left to their own devices for now." He held up a warning finger. "Should they step out of line, however, it will be understood that they be treated with the same disciplinary measures as would be afforded to all cadets. Up to, and including, expulsion."

"That is understood," Rassilon muttered. "And it should be understood by you that I intend not to leave Cadon until their time here is complete. I will insist on observing and assisting wherever any unacceptable forces may exist to threaten their path." He drew himself to a stand. "Now where can I find Rose and River of Lungbarrow?"

Altamoro inhaled a ragged breath. "The _Wolf_ and the _TARDIS,_" he snarked sarcastically, "are expected in a weaponry session in the eastern Dojo." He offered a tilt of his head. "One of my teaching assistants is conducting this session. Perhaps we can stand as observers and assess the capability of the one you believe will rescue our planet from total destruction."

Rassilon took the challenge with a deep grin. "I accept your offer, Altamono. If it is that you wish to test her capability…" he paused slightly. "Then I will willingly engage her in competition…"

"You wish to challenge the Wolf," Lovolruvalliplagnornelanlorir spat in disbelief.

Altamono let a lazy grin spread across his cheeks. "Provided you fight as the Hero Time Lord, and not give grace."

"I am incapable of giving grace," Rassilon growled with a smile. "Mercy is given to the weak. I will prove that the Wolf is strong."


	38. Watching

A/N: Are we moving along yet? Are we? Yes …. We are … somewhat ….

~~oooOOOooo~~

There were three beaming and excited smiles that skidded into the doorway of the Cadon equivalent of a high school gymnasium. With only thirteen seconds to spare until they would be considered tardy, the trio dumped their books at the door and jogged to a vacant spot on the floor beside a long training mat.

Rose's hand was still clutched onto the small hand of the young boy, and with a light flick of her wrist, she released him to drop onto her ass on the floor beside River. For a moment, the young boy stood still with his eyes locked onto his now unfilled hand with a look of confusion as to why he suddenly felt so empty. He let his eyes wander to the bobbing blonde head of hair as she leaned in to River for friendly chatter, but he didn't sit. Instead he slowly drew himself away to sit by himself along the outer edge of the group where the younger cadets were seated.

"And where do you think you're going," River playfully hollered at him from around Rose.

The boy paused and turned with a puzzled look on his face as he pointed to the edge of the group. "I'm going to take my seat."

"Oh," Rose coughed. She put her hand against her heart as though hurting. "So our chivalrous Lord is going to leave us. Leave us without so much as a good bye?"

River dramatically pressed the back of her hand against her forehead. "My hearts. My breaking hearts."

He leaned slightly forward, embarrassed at the scene and of the eyes looking quizzically at him. "But I have to sit over here." He pointed to the younger group.

"Suit yourself," Rose said with a nonchalant shrug as she scuffled slightly away from River and petted the space in between them. "But if you change your mind…"

There was a heckle from the back of the group. "Oh how sweet. Wormhole has a girlfriend."

Rose twisted to shoot back a look of annoyance. "Yeah. Two of them actually. He's already breaking hearts at Nine. You've probably never been laid – and how old are you?"

"Never been _what_?"

Both ladies paused for just a moment in anticipation of a snarked _Time Lords don't get laid_ comment from one of the boys. Nothing came through the comm-link, which made them both slouch.

"Then I'll say it," River groused. She adopted the masculine manner that was a perfect mix of both Doctors. "Time Lords don't get _laid_. Well. Except maybe _yours_."

Not even a scornful snort down the line.

"Uh, Doctor?" Rose queried with a tap of her finger against her ear. "Still with us?" At the continued silence, Rose quickly twisted to face River. She cupped the older women's cheeks and focused on the camera in the glasses as she crossed her eyes, rolled her tongue and generally pulled a face to get some kind of reaction from Lungbarrow.

River merely cocked a brow at Rose's face being way-too-close to hers to maintain clear vision. With a lengthened expression and rapid blinking of her eyes she cleared her sight and jerked back just slightly. "You are very much currently at risk of making every cadet in here believe that we're both certifiably insane."

Rose blinked out her pulled face, but didn't relinquish hold of River's cheeks. "But we are, aren't we?"

"It's before council right now, I believe."

Finally, a response filtered in from Lungbarrow. _"Council's come back. You're both completely nuts. No. More than that. You're way up there completely totally brilliantly insane."_

Rose pursed her lips to hide a smile as the professor stepped into the room. "Amy, my glorious redhead. The boys have you on watch right now?"

_"__They both took off into their respective TARDIS', TARDI, TARDISES … Just what is the plural of TARDIS?"_ Her shrug was actually audible over the comms. _"It was a spooky Twin kind of moment. They all of a sudden just got up and bolted pretty much, both with identical excuses of having to get a bleeping something or other so that they can sonic or something or yeah."_

River looked to Rose with a roll of her eyes. "The attention span of gnats, both of them."

"Well," Rose began. "You can tell my Doctor that if he ever expects to get…"

_"_Don't say it_," _River begged. "Just don't."

"Say what?"

"If he ever expects to get _laid_ again."

Rose snorted. "Not _exactly_ what I was going to say, but yeah. You can tell him that if you want, Amy." She looked at River with amusement. "I was _actually_ going to suggest that if he ever expected to learn anything today that he needs to get his skinny butt back to the monitor."

"Yeah. Bullshit."

_"__I called it into the TARDIS. No answer. Guess he's not as into it as I pegged him for. You'd think, with all that energy…"_

"Okay. Then fine. Never again. No sugar for the Doctor," Rose threatened with honest annoyance as she removed her earpiece and flicked it like a ball of snot to the other side of the room. "This thing is uncomfortable anyway."

"Why'd you do that?"

"If he's not talking, then I'm not listening."

"Oh, that's not going to go down well," River mused softly. Her eyes shot upward and she hissed for silence. "We'd better listen up, yeah?"

"Yep," Rose said softly. She looked up as a lithe figure plopped himself down in between them. "Oh! Decided to stay, my Lord?"

He shrugged. He smiled. He rocked from one side to the other to nudge both women with his shoulders. "You ladies intrigue me," he admitted. "I'm curious about you, and can't learn exactly why that is if I am sitting across the room from you."

"So River and I are an experiment for you then?"

"You could say that," he said with a small grin tickling at the edge of his mouth. "You don't seem like typical Ladies of Time, and I'm eager to work out just why that is."

"That's not terribly romantic of you to admit that, young Lord," River mused as she scruffed at his sandy-blonde hair. "But. Such is the way of the Lords of Time, so carry on." She removed her glasses and rubbed at the bridge of her nose. Distractedly, she handed them around the young Time Lord with the intention to give them to Rose to put in her bag.

The young boy took them instead. He pulled them up onto his face and crinkled his nose. "No prescription," he noted curiously.

"Fashion statement," River offered with a shrug. "I tend to think that they make me look smarter."

"Intriguing." He kept them balanced on his nose and dropped his chin onto his fist as the professor finally began to speak. "Do they make _me_ look smart?"

~~oooOOOooo~~

Both Doctors stepped out of their respective TARDIS machines. Each man held a different apparatus, and were solely focused upon that item as they returned to their seats. Eleven's focus was such that he didn't even notice that Amy was in his chair. He plopped down smartly onto her knee.

Amy flicked a brow as she waited for the inevitable peep, uncomfortable rise, stumble and apology. It didn't come. In fact he didn't' even appear to notice.

"Doctor," she muttered with only a slight sharp tone. "You're not exactly feather light you know."

"Which is pertinent right now for what reason, Pond?"

"Oh I don't know," she sang lightly. "Probably because you're sitting on my knee, and you certainly didn't ask for – nor receive for that matter – permission from my husband to do that."

His eyes shot wide and he quickly leapt up off her knee amidst awkward apology. It took only a second for a new chair to be trundled along the floor and into position behind him. He quietly thanked the house and sat down.

Amy frowned as she looked with suspicion at the chair. Her head tilted curiously. Her lips pursed. Finally, she had to speak. "You know, Doctor. I don't know if this is very much of a concern for you or anything, given who you are and all. But did you happen to know that your house is haunted?"

"Sentient," he corrected as he briefly let his eyes flick to the monitor ahead of him and then looked back to the item in his hand.

"Sentient," Amy flatly repeated with an _I really should have guessed that _purse in her lips. "Yes. Of course it is." She shrugged a little. "So the whole moving of furniture thing is nothing of concern then?"

"I'd be more concerned if it didn't," he answered blandly. He tapped Ten on the shoulder to show him the gizmo, which put them both into immediate conversation.

Amy licked at her lip. She poked at Eleven's shoulder. She narrowed her eyes to only get a swat in response. "Oh. So that's how it's going to be," she muttered under her breath as her eyes moved to the monitors. "Just so you know, Rose's Doctor, you're never getting laid again."

"Sorry, what was that," he answered with his typically friendly softness.

"Oh of course, you'd hear _that_," she snapped. Her expression switched to thoughtful. "Then again, you didn't when I yelled it to the TARDIS."

"All I _heard_," he corrected shortly. "Was you address me as Rose's Doctor. Anything beyond that, unfortunately, I missed. Would you mind repeating for me?"

"Okay," she supplied as she slouched backward in her chair. "While you two were flitting away in your blue boxes, the following transmissions were received. You," she pointed to Ten, "are never getting laid again. Straight from Rose's mouth."

"What? Why?"

"Also, they both have made this cute little Time Boy their new boyfriend. Lucky ladies. He's completely adorable. I'm jealous."

Both Doctor's cleared their throats uncomfortably.

"Rose has discarded her ear piece and River's handed off her glasses. Just so you know." She pointed at the monitor.

"Oh you have _got_ to be kidding me," Ten spat quickly. He rolled himself centre between the two monitors. "Why would they go ahead and do that?"

"Because they figured you were ignoring them anyway," Amy offered with a shrug. "Hey. You guys were gone for a bit. They tried to get you online, but they got no response, so they gave up on you."

"Oh," Ten growled as he trundled his chair to the mic. "They want a response, do they?"

~~oooOOOooo~~

The young boy and Rose couldn't help but hear the slight snickering coming from River Song as they looked ahead to the instruction being led by a spritely looking older Time Lord. The snicker did appear to be strained, which meant that River Song was desperately trying to keep it together.

Rose looked down and began to count off on her fingertips how long it would take for the snicker to become an all-out laugh. It took to the count of four for a hotly amused cough to shoot out of River's mouth into her fist. She inhaled deeply through her nose and bit again at her lip

Rose leaned forward to look past their young charge. "Everything okay back at the house, River?"

"Mmm-hmmm," she hummed on a tone much higher than River song would normally use.

"You sure?"

She laughed quietly through her nose and closed her eyes to try and hold it. "And here I was thinking that the TARDIS wasn't going to translate swears for us."

"Yours or mine," Rose queried with a lick at her lip.

"Put it this way. The anti on your promise of abstinence has just been upped."

"Ahh yes," Rose breathed in reply. "How very mature of you, Doctor." She held up her hand as River gasped. "I don't need to hear his response to that."

"He's a very _passionate_ man, your Doctor, isn't he?"

"Quite," Rose mused softly. She looked down to her hand, where a little set of fingers were walking apprehensively toward hers. Her eyes flicked to the young boy. "Need a hand to hold, little man?"

He grinned a familiar manic grin and nodded quickly as he snatched her hand. "Absolutely."

She gave a laugh. "You are too cute. Really."

The Time Lord at the head of the gathering of students, a Lord who looked to be well into his 40's – by Earth standards – began an in depth monologue that outlined the history and purpose of a fighting style that only one of the two women seated either side of a young Time Lord was familiar with. River practically purred in complete rapture as the professor outlined the weaponry and the techniques taught to all children of this remote planet from the moment they began to walk.

Rose, on the other hand, while interested in the lecture, spent most of her time scanning the room and focusing on all that surrounded her. She couldn't help but notice a gathering of robed Time Lords that had entered. They remained stoic and quiet at the back of the room; just watching the training with unmoving and undistracted eyes.

"Who are they," she whispered to the young Lord as she peered as covertly as possible over the tops of her glasses. "I can recognize our Quantum Mathematics professor." Her breath hitched. "Oh sweet Jesus…"

The young Lord peered over his shoulder at the gathering behind him. "They're all professors here," he answered softly. Altamono usually takes this study. Lovol is our Mathematics professor. Twongwang is language studies." He blew out a breath. "The other Lord must be new. I've never seen him before." He looked back to the front. "It must be an orientation session for the new professor. I look forward to engaging in studies with him if that is the case. It's always nice to begin study with a new professor."

Rose swallowed hard. "I don't think he's a professor." She pushed the glasses up high on her nose in an attempt to ensure Lungbarrow could see what she was looking at. "Doctor," she warned worriedly. "Is that Rassilon?"

The young Lord shot a look over his shoulder and then shook his head. "No, Arkytior. Rassilon is long buried inside his tomb," he answered. "And none of his known regenerations looked like that." He looked back at her with a smile. "Did you sleep through the Gallifreyan Political Society lessons?" At her nervous smile he tilted his head. "I can tutor you if you wish."

"Young Lord," the professor snapped suddenly. "Do you find my instruction uninteresting?"

"No, honoured Professor," he answered back quickly as he snapped his hand away from Rose's. "I apologise for my distraction. I assure you that it won't happen again."

"Would you like to stand at the front of this gathering and show your fellow pupils what you have learned about this technique?"

His eyes shot wide in horror, but before he could respond, River Song desperately raised her hand. "Oh. Let me. _Please_ let me."

Rose shot a forward lean to look around the young Lord. "River?"

River Song was brilliantly eager. Eager enough that she shot up to a fast stand and walked over the shoulders of two rows of pupils to step up to the front. She dropped her robe carelessly to the floor. "I would love to stand up against a fellow pupil to practice this technique."

The professor was shocked, but intrigued. A single brow rose up his forehead as he regarded her curiously. "You must be our new pupil, River of Lungbarrow."

"That I am," she cooed as she rubbed her hands together. She gave the lightest of bows. "And I humbly request that I be allowed to practice this technique in the presence of my peers."

"Very well," the professor said with a smile. "I shall put to you your cousin, Arkhew of Lungbarrow. He is our most diligent study of this technique."

Arkew rose tall from where he was seated. "Blondie's no cousin of mine," he growled. "But I'm in for it."

River's face stretched in a lazy smile. "Oh yes," she purred as she looked to the sky. "Thank you."

The young Lord covered his face with his hands. "Oh no. He's going to destroy her."

Rose rubbed at his shoulder. "Don't underestimate our River song," she sang with a giggle. "She's going to wipe the floor with him!"

~~oooOOOooo~~

Amy's mouth was gaped to watch the monitor, and the impeding battle between River song and Arkhew. "Oh," she moaned. "This is where I could definitely do with some popcorn."

"No popcorn on Gallifrey," Eleven muttered as he leaned an elbow on the table and faced the monitor with his shoulder at lead. "Which is a shame. Popcorn is remarkable stuff."

Amy pointed back toward the TARDIS. "In the pantry. Go fetch."

"Excuse me?"

Her eyes narrowed in disappointment at him. "No?" She let out a breath and then hollered out loudly to her husband. "Rory! Popcorn! STAT!"

Both Ten and Eleven jumped at her voice. Ten's current gadget gizmo project leapt out of his hand, and he had to juggle it between hands to stop it clattering to the floor. "That is _quite_ the shrill tone you have, Amy," he remarked in a high voice.

"Well," she said with a shrug and a smile. "It gets attention, doesn't it?"

"Indeed," he muttered as he pushed his glasses back up his nose. "I think even a deaf man would hear that and react accordingly." He slouched lightly and looked upward. "That could be an interesting study, you know. There have been remarkable advancements in the neurological sciences of Delta-72 in the constellation of Karactorus." His eyes dropped. "They've found that deafness in their species, whether it be from the womb or by accident or degeneration of the aural nerves can be reversed if they can find the correct pitch and weight of sound and use it as therapy. Of course, each form of sound therapy is calibrated through a patient by patient assessment, but I think the use of your voice might well have higher successes…"

"I can't actually tell," Amy muttered darkly. "If you're sassing me or not." She circled her finger in the air at him. "Insult hidden in Doctor babble, perhaps?"

"Now why would I do such a thing," he stated with very well feigned innocence.

"Because you're him," she muttered with a thrust of her thumb over her shoulder toward Eleven. "And sneaky raggedy man uses the same technique sometimes."

"I do no such thing," Eleven countered with a shake of his head and a roll in his eyes. "You are far too sensitive, Pond."

Ten was chuckling as he leaned down to take a look at the monitors. "So what is going on then? Are the girls staying out of trouble?"

Amy shrugged. "River is about to get into it with a guy named Arkhew." She pointed at one monitor. "You'll have to watch that one." She pointed to the second one, which just showed the side of Rose's head. "Looks like the little guy is more interested in looking at Rose than watching the fight, so you're not getting anything from that."

Eleven shook his head. "No. Not so much more interested in Rose…"

"Well he is," Ten corrected quickly. "He's been imprinting on her since they sat down. Remember?"

Eleven nodded. He let out a sigh. "Yes. I remember vividly, thank you."

Amy looked between the two men. "Not going to even try to guess what you're on about."

"He's not looking at Rose," Eleven deflected swiftly. "He's actually looking away from the fight because he doesn't want to see River get hurt."

"Which she doesn't," Ten added quickly. "She kicks his arrogant butt quite brilliantly."

"Oh, doesn't she," Eleven muttered with a chuckle. "I believe it was the fist to the groin that brought him down to the mat." He high-fived Ten. "She had the whole room immediately cover themselves."

Both Doctors laughed. Ten wiped at his eye. "I can't believe I never for an instant considered that the two _Goddesses_ that I spent one amazing day at Cadon with were Rose and River."

Amy wore a deep frown across her brow. "Hold on. What are you talking about?"

"That young Lord," Eleven admitted with a swallow. He shifted his thumb between himself and Ten. "he's me. And him."

"Metaphorically, right?" She nodded in pleading for them to nod. "Right?" She slumped to see both men shake their heads in a sheepish manner. "Oh Hell. And so the threat of a gigantic paradox puts us where?"

"No paradox," Ten answered smoothly. "This is a fixed point in time. This has to happen. River song and Rose have to have influence on the younger me – however fleeting it may be."

"Why?"

"Oh," Ten said with a laugh of reassurance. "So that I can be all I am meant to be."

"So we blame _those_ two for _you_ two." She rolled her eyes. "I'll be sure to have words with them both when this is over. You were a cute kid, by the way." She looked at the screen and gasped, covering her mouth with both hands. "Oh my God."

Ten leaned down to her ear. "Told you River Song destroyed him."

"Oh, even _I_ felt that," she moaned as she covered her crotch and crossed her legs. "Low down and dirty."

"But within the known tactics of the Feruvian warrior's technique," Ten said with a shrug. "They played dirty. It worked for them."

"Still, there has to be some line that you don't cross. Going for the snag and spuds is pretty low. I will have to talk to River about that." Amy still squirmed. "Does Arkhew ever walk again?"

"Yes he does, Amy." Eleven slumped. "Unfortunately."

~~oooOOOooo~~

River song loved nothing more than an adoring audience. Correction, she loved nothing more than outright victory – especially when it was victory over one she considered high on the douchebag evolutionary scale. She held her fists high in victory as Arkhew writhed painfully across the mat.

To the front of her, Rose cheered. It was a sound much like a soccer fan celebrating the winning goal for her team, with whoops and hollers and much fist pumping the air. "That'll teach you, _Arkhew of Lungbarrow_, that you don't mess about with the women of your house. We will destroy you!" She jumped to her feet as River returned so that she could to a high-ten with her.

The professor clicked in disapproval. "Rose of Lungbarrow. Your conduct is very unbecoming of a Time Lady. Desist with your behavior, immediately."

She was amused but waved an apologetic hand at the professor. "My bad. Sorry. It's just that she was simply beautiful to watch that I had to express my admiration." She bowed her head lightly. "It won't happen again, honoured professor."

"I should hope not."

He addressed the gathering once more, remarking on the accuracy of River's attacks and defense, and of the different strategies that would be employed dependent upon who was your aggressor.

Rose still held humour as she leaned into river and held out her hand in a request for a low-five. "Sensational effort," she swooned. "Just beautiful."

"Amy didn't think so," she replied with a snort as she took the glasses form the young boy and slid them up onto her nose. "Looks like my mother intends on having a discussion with me regarding my going at the snag and two potatoes."

"It was a very appropriate attack," Rose assured. "A douche attack for a douche bag."

"Didn't matter where I hit him, then, did it?" River's amusement faded somewhat. "Have you seen the cronies at the back of the room?"

Rose nodded. "Yes."

Both girls twisted to look over their shoulders at them. They weren't surprised at all to see that they had the rapt attention of at least one of the men in the group.

"Do you know who they are, by chance," River asked.

"Professors," Rose offered. "All of them, except.."

"Except who?"

A pair of voices from Lungbarrow, their gasps, and their worried whisper answered the question. _"Rassilon."_

River touched at her ear piece. "Rose. The Doctor says it's Rassilon."

"That's what I thought," Rose muttered as she let her eyes lock onto the gaze of the Grand Master. "This young Lord here says otherwise."

"_That's because he's out of his time_," Eleven offered. _"That's Rassilon, River. Tell Rose that I'm sorry."_

"Sorry for _what_?" She asked with worry.

_"__Sorry about what's coming."_

"What do you mean," she asked with worry. "What's coming?"

Ten's voice was weak down the line. _"Tell her that I love her, River."_

_"__That __**we**__ love her," _Eleven added. _"The both of us."_

"Why, Doctor?" She began to panic. "Why?"

_"__The sound of the TARDIS, River. The wheezing whine of her rotors. Tell Rose to listen for them, and to focus her calm on that beautiful sound, because the TARDIS will come. __**I**__ will come. I promise."_

"You're beginning to scare me." Her eyes widened as she looked upward and to the front of the gym, where a pair of Lords had moved.

The entire gymnasium was in a hush as Rassilon let his robe fall to the mat, the crest on his chest leaving no doubt as to his identity on full display. He stepped forward, the Time Lord Grand Master, and extended his hand with a downward facing palm into the crowd. "Rose Tyler," he smoothed along a dark breath. "Step forward, child."

She shook her head and shuffled lightly backward. "Uhm."

At the sound of a displeased snort to his side from Altamono, Rassilon's voice became dark, urgent, full of demand. "You will rise, child." He turned his palm upward in invitation, and raised his chin high. "Come to me, Gallifrey's Wolf."

"No," she whimpered. "Not again."


	39. Defeat

A/N: Was reading and reviewing fics again … I even trudged across to the Alec Hardy/Rose stuff. Damn. There are just too many bloody awesome pieces of work out there that distract me. Swoon. I love this fandom. I love Ten and Rose.

Next chapter will end this arc … I've actually been sitting on this section for about three days now waiting for the time to finish it up (and having three potential outcomes), and really have to get it off my computer before I fiddle with it yet again and … ugh … it goes on and on and on.

~~oooOOOooo~~

Amy let a shudder of panic curse through her at the words being spoken by both Doctors. She knew for a damn fact that her Doctor never uttered such pleasantries as _I love you_ to anyone. Rose's Doctor? Well, it was clear he was besotted by Rose, but she hadn't actually heard him say it out loud. It was her assumption that the lanky energetic ball of Time Lord Fire preferred to physically illustrate his devotion instead of speak it.

And so, hearing both of the Doctors utter those words with an urgent plea that the subject of their affection _knows_ of their affection. Well. That was an ominous sign that everything was quite likely about to turn to shit.

…With River Song and Rose right in the thick of it.

She turned sharply to both Doctors. Her arms folded tightly across her chest. Her jaw set just slightly off centre, and her glare was dark. She didn't need to say anything at all.

Ten caught Amy's look over the tops of his glasses and let his brows rise high and apologetically as he brought his hand down onto Eleven's shoulder. "I'm leaving explanations to you, Doctor. I've got to go through some pre-flight checklists on the old girl… Make sure I get to Cadon on time instead of 900 years in the future, you know." He swirled his hand in the air. "Yep. I think I should set some coordinates and make sure my girl's ready for flight."

Eleven let a frown of mild confusion pass across his eyes as he swept his attention from the monitor, past Amy, toward Ten. His eyes didn't make the full swing toward his brother. Instead they got caught in the tractor beam of Amy's glare. He shrank ever so slightly.

"Don't look at me like that, Pond."

False bravado. She was amused that he made the effort, but she knew that he knew that she saw right through it. "That's my daughter."

He kept his head low and focused through his bangs onto the monitor. "Indeed."

"And. _What?_ You're going to just sit here as she and Rose get caught up in something?"

"Fixed point," he defended sharply. "Can't interfere."

"That's bullshit," she snapped back in challenge. She pointed toward the monitor. "One of you boys had better get in there and get them out."

"Or what," he challenged sharply.

She leaned in with a sneer. "Or I'll go get them myself."

The Doctor rolled his eyes and shook his head. "Travel by foot will take a couple of your Earth hours." He looked to the screen for a short moment. "This comes to a rather spectacular head in about ten minutes."

"I'll take a TARDIS, then." She held up a finger and let her eyes flare in warning. "And, oh, I know how to take over a TARDIS," she threatened. "Just give me a crowbar, apparently."

He slammed both hands down hard on the table and threw himself to a stand. He raised a finger to point into her unflinching face. "That isn't something to make light about," he growled. "That stunt killed her, and it killed me. It was a non-survivable event." He pointed back to the TARDIS. "And it is the very reason that they are in this situation to begin with."

She gasped. "What?"

"Just trust us." He flicked his head to the TARDIS belonging to the Doctor and Rose. "He's just getting set up. He'll go grab them when it's time." He inhaled hard and passed an apologetic, pained, and honest look to Amy. "River will be fine. Rassilon's not there for her."

"And Rose?"

He closed his eyes and inhaled a deep breath. "What happens has to happen."

Ten exited his TARDIS at that moment. "Right-oh. The old girl's set to go in." He walked, straightening his tie and fixing the tuck of his shirt into his trousers as he leaned down to look at the monitors and the scene inside the Academy walls. "Will I still be a married man after this," he queried painfully.

"Take as much of it off her as you can, Doctor," Eleven suggested evenly. "Fire up that bond of yours and put it to actual use."

"You say that like it's so easy to do."

"Well it _should_ be," Eleven admonished with a light curl in his lip. "That's the point of pair bonding, isn't it?"

"I haven't taught her how to use it," Ten snapped in return. "We haven't exactly had time." He ruffled his own hair. "If I go nudging at her right now demanding entrance to her mind, Rose'll flip out. You know _exactly_ how she feels about anyone poking around in there without permission."

"If you don't, then I will." At Ten's rather effective glare _a 'la Oncoming Storm_, Eleven curled a lip and returned a glare of his own. He tapped at his temple as his lips twisted into a dark smile. "Imprinted on her at the age of Nine, Brother. I am fully able to get in there if I want to. Don't you think for an instant that I won't."

"You stay away from _my wife_," Ten threatened with a growl. "You don't have the right to try to get into her head. You relinquished that right when you abandoned her on a cold Norway beach."

"That's low even for you."

"If it's gonna go so bad," Amy growled in interruption. "Then stop ya squibblin and go and get them."

"We can't," Ten seethed through a growl. "Don't you think that if I could I would?"

"Don't throw your pissy attitude on me, Doctor," she snapped back. She then pointed to the monitor, where the beginning of something rather ugly was taking place. "Give me one damn good reason why this _has to happen_; why you can't go and get them."

There was a brief silence from the two brothers. They shared a look and turned their heads in opposite directions. Ten rubbed at his brows with a downcast head. Eleven was the one to answer.

"This has to happen so I can see what she looks like," he said softly; all anger gone from his tone.

"Excuse me?"

"I need to see her like this," he answered. "So when she comes to me I'll listen to her."

"And I'll trust her," Ten added. His voice took on a desperate tone as his eyes raised high. "By Rassilon will I trust her."

Amy looked horridly confused. "I don't get it."

"In my absolute darkest hour," Ten said on a strangled breath. "The Bad Wolf will show me the light."

"And she'll save me," Eleven added. "She'll save everyone."

~~oooOOOooo~~

_Rassilon's voice became dark, urgent, full of demand. "You will rise, child." He turned his palm upward in invitation, and raised his chin high. "Come to me, Gallifrey's Wolf."_

_"__No," she whimpered. "Not again."_

His fingers splayed to a taut stretch. "There's no need to fear me."

"Oh, I doubt that," she said in a whimper. She raised a questioning finger to him before she moved to rise out of her seat. "But with all due respect to you, uh, _Sir_, might I please convene with my companions first before I take your hand?"

"Of course," he answered without pulling back his hand. "But don't take too long. I am not exactly known for my patience."

Rose nodded and held up three fingers. "Three minutes, that's all. Just three." She immediately turned to River and the young Doctor. "Anything from Lungbarrow?"

"He loves you," River said quickly.

"I love him too," Rose said with a smile.

"Both of them," River corrected quickly. "I got that message from the both of them."

Rose frowned. "He _actually_ said it. _Your_ Doctor. He actually said _those three words_?"

"Yes," her voice was just slightly choked.

Rose closed her eyes with a frown. "I'm screwed. I'm totally, and utterly screwed. If _he_ said it, then I'm completely done for."

"He says to listen for the TARDIS," River said quickly. "Listen for her, stay calm and he'll come for you."

Rose rubbed her hand down her face. She looked back to River with terror in her eyes. "If Rassilon can invoke the wolf, River. If she comes. Get _him_ out of here. He's too young to have to see that."

River looked to where Rose had gestured; toward the young boy with a look of extreme curiosity in his eyes. Her eyes flicked back to Rose. "I thought the Wolf was a good thing?"

Rose shook her head. "Twice. She's killed us twice, the Doctor an' me."

River Song gasped as her hands flew to her mouth. "My God, Rose. Just what is this _Wolf_?"

Rose sniffed. "The Time Vortex. The protector of the Storm," she said softly. "Me. And my TARDIS isn't here to protect me."

"So. You. Uhm." River ran her hand over her hair. "I'm born of the TARDIS, Rose." She offered. "Perhaps…?" Her look was a hopeful one.

"Then with a TARDIS here. I'll be fine," she said through a shaking laugh as she took off her glasses and slid them onto the young Doctor's face. She cupped at his cheeks and looked into the lenses to send a message back to Lungbarrow. Her eyes bore into the young boy's as though looking into the eyes of her lover. She slid into perfect, melodic Gallifreyan. "My hearts, they beat for you, Doctor."

"That's not my name," he whispered in stunned response, missing her sudden gasp of realization.

"No-o-o-o. You're _not_…"

"What?" He answered her with quiet confusion.

She shook herself and focused on his face. "No. You're right. It's not your name. At least, not yet," she answered soothingly as she removed the chain holding her TARDIS key from around her neck and looped it over his. "Look after this, little Lord. Protect it for me."

"What is it," he queried with a high brow as he looked over the insignificant looking key.

She gave him a wink. "The key to my heart."

He beamed and clutched it to his chest. "Then I shall keep it safe for all eternity, Arkytior."

With a steadying breath, Rose drew herself to a stand and turned on the ball of her right foot to face Rassilon, who still had his hand held to her in invitation. With a bowed head, she took his hand and used it to steady herself as she walked through the two rows of pupils ahead of her. She noticed, immediately, the coldness of his fingers, the callouses, the slightly longer fingernails, and the terrifically firm grip. It was so different to the hold of the Doctor's hand.

Her hand shook as Rassilon led her to the training mat and brought her hand to his lips to drop a gentle kiss upon her knuckle.

"My, but you are beautiful," he crooned with only a rise of his eyes to hers as his lips stayed upon her knuckle. "I can see why he is so enamoured by you."

She cleared her throat with discomfort. "I'm flattered," she admitted softly. "Now. May I have my hand back?"

"Of course," he said with a dark smile as he opened his fingers to let her hand fall to her side.

She licked at her lip in a show of discomfort as she let her eyes drift down to River and the young man who she truly hoped wasn't who she thought he was. Her eyes grazed back to Rassilon. "To what to I owe the pleasure of your attention today, Sir?"

He set his hands behind his back, lacing his fingers together as he slowly circled her. "I merely wanted to see you for myself," he said quietly in a voice laced by admiration. He inhaled as he passed by her back. "You smell of Time."

Her eyes tracked his movements. "Is that your polite way of telling me that I need to take a shower?"

"The essence of Time is a most wonderous and intoxicating aroma."

His movements paused, which had her looking down her shoulder at him. "Then perhaps I should bottle it up and sell it in market."

He chuckled on a low breath. "Do you fear me?"

"Not really," she lied with as much false bravado as she could muster. "Should I?"

"I am Rassilon," he stated quite simply.

"Yes. I'm aware of who you are, of your reputation." She tilted her head. "But I'm not entirely sure of why you've just pulled me up in front of an entire study class to examine me. You could have easily called me aside to discuss in private."

"You sense that I'm up to something."

"From what I know of Time Lords," She answered on a long suffering huff as she rolled her eyes. "Specifically those of the Prydonian houses. Is that you're _always_ up to _something_."

He straightened up. "Indeed we are." He snapped his fingers to the instructor. "I am here to issue challenge to Rose of Lungbarrow, who will henceforth be known to all as the Wolf." He paused for dramatics. "The Wolf of Gallifrey."

"Please don't."

"Please don't _what_," he queried as he watched her rub at her brows. "Don't issue challenge?"

"Oh," she breathed hotly. "You can do that. Of course you can." She waved her hand through the air. "But as for the whole _Wolf_ bit. Well, it's getting tiring, really." She walked backward to the wall of weapons and analyzed just which one she was going to use against a man she knew beyond doubt was going to kick her ass across Kasterborous. She could already see by his firm stance that he was going to be as immoveable as a brick wall.

He watched her closely. "I was thinking that we spar. No weapons."

She was impressed that she was able to hold her shoulders high, even though they were somewhat desperate to slump. She turned her head to look over her shoulder at him. "Oh-kay."

"So come, child. Come to Rassilon and show those who doubt the power of our Wolf."

"Please stop calling me that," she moaned with a definite slouch in her shoulders as she strode toward him. "I'm not a Wolf. I'm just Rose."

Rose briefly caught that she was being chided by another of the Time Lords for her lack of respect toward Rassilon, but the actual words were unheard as she felt a nudging in her mind. It was an incessant urging for connection that refused to abate, even as she shook it off and tried to ignore it as she would an unwanted phone call on her iPhone. "Doctor. Not now."

Rassilon seemed to stand in her defense and returned the chiding offered by the other time Lord. Again, missed as she fought against the prodding in her mind. "Oh. Fine, for God's sake," she finally snapped as she let down her guard and allowed the Doctor inside her head. There were no words shared, no shared thoughts or feelings, just sudden clarity. Clarity and the knowledge that she wasn't alone. That gave her the boost of confidence she needed.

It made her grin a dark smile. "So. Rassilon of Prydon. Ready to _rumble_?"

"Are you ready to release the beast?"

"Isn't that what _you're_ supposed to do?"

He returned her comment with a booming laugh. His head lowered in a threatening manner. "Bring her forth, Rose Tyler." He thrust his hand toward her with the intent to grab at her shoulder to toss her. He managed to grunt as she evaded him with a fast spin.

Rose's spin ended with her dropping into a comic-book style crouch, one hand held in front of her with only the pads of her fingers pressing to the ground, her other hand stretched back behind her as she sought balance. In a fast few seconds she analyzed the man in front of her, trying to target any potential weaknesses. Her eyes raked from his feet to his head and back down with such deliberance that he could practically feel it.

A breath shuddered out through his gritted teeth. "Come to me."

Rose launched from her crouch, using the full power inside her thighs to propel quickly toward him. As she neared the looming Time Lord, and watched as he braced his upper body for attack, Rose let her body fall onto her elbow and knee to slide by him. As she passed, she drove her elbow into the crook of his knee and grabbed at the mat to stop her slide and pull herself to her feet.

Rasillon grunted as he dropped to his knee. He then growled a thunderous bellow as Rose kicked into his other knee to drive the large Time Lord onto both knees on the training mat. Swiftly, she clutched around his throat with the intent to completely pull him down to the mat.

Unfortunately, Rassilon had far more strength than Rose had anticipated. Although on his knees with a throbbing pain behind his knee, Rassilon snatched Rose's arm and hauled her in a single pull over his shoulder. She let out a sharp cry as her back collided with one of his knees and she tumbled to the mat.

He watched her with disappointment as she writhed for a moment on the mat with her hand pressed against her lower back.

"Is that all she has in her," Altamono snarled with disgust. "_This_," he gestured to Rose with a flick of his hand. "_This_ is your precious _Wolf_?"

Rose panted out her waning back pain and shakily drew herself to her feet. "What is with you Time Lords and this bloody Wolf thing?" She stalked toward Rassilon and wiped angrily at her brow. "I'm going to tell _you_ what I told your friend _Borusa_ four days ago when he tried to invoke the Wolf." She held her fists angrily at her sides. "Not. Gonna. Happen." Her voice softened to a shrug. "The Doctor took that power from me _years_ ago. I'm not able to give you what you're looking for."

Rassilon's face morphed to fury and he stalked quickly toward her. "_Borusa?_ Where did you meet that traitorous Time Lord?"

She gave a dismissive wave. "Oh. Another parallel. Earth. Playing about with Torchwood." She twitched her fingers in the air as through sprinkling glitter on the ground. "But don't worry, he won't be a bother to anyone anymore." Her eyes narrowed. "Torchwood isn't exactly partial to anyone – specifically pushy Time Lords – trying to mess about with their stuff."

Rassilon's hand curled into an angry fist. "I want that Time Lord brought to me."

"He's gone," she snarled.

He raked disapproving eyes up and down her form. "_You_ defeated a Prydonian master, Rose Tyler; or was the Doctor responsible for taking away my right to seek my own justice upon him?"

She stalked around him, once again seeking the best vantage point to attack. "Does it matter who?"

"I will take my piece of whomever was responsible," he growled threateningly. "You, or the _Doctor_." Rassilon saw the slightest shimmer dance across her eyes at the mention of the renegade Time Lord. A smile ticked at the side of his mouth. "Oh. That _is _interesting."

"What is?"

Rassilon merely grinned a wide and dark smile; a smile that reached into her very soul. "You hold within you the power of Time," he purred. "But, tell me, Rose Tyler, who is it that has control over Time?"

"Noone," she breathed darkly. "Noone has control over time except for time herself."

"And yet you don't have control, do you?" he queried with a growl. "It is under the control of a Lord of Time." He lunged at her. "I will rectify that."

Rose actually let up a yelp as this man, easily twice her size, launched himself at her. His hands were raised and on target to snap against her temples. She twisted to her side to avoid him, and dropped into crouch as he dropped atop her.

In a self protective reflex, Rose's forearms came up to shield her temples from Rassilon's fingers. "No!" She hollered at him as she dropped to her knee and rolled out from underneath him. She stepped back with her hands over her temples. She held clear anger and warning in her tone. "That's using weapons," she charged him. "That's cheating."

He didn't seem particularly affronted by her accusation of him cheating. Rassilon merely thrust his arm forward to take hold of her wrist. "This is how Time Lords _spar_, Rose." He punctuated his cool words by yanking on her arm with enough force that she spun in place and then stumbled hard down onto the training mat. She let up a sharp cry as she felt her shoulder give under her impact.

She hoped that the TARDIS was thoughtful enough to not translate English swears into Gallifreyan, because the _big three_ did explode from her mouth as she clutched at her limp arm and staggered to a stand. "Uncle," she pleaded.

"Excuse me?"

Rose backed up, stumbled to a knee, but then rose again. Her body was stooped forward in defeat, her injured shoulder held limply in front of her with her hand clutched at her upper arm. "I concede."

"No," Rassilon growled thunderously. "You will not."

Her face lengthened in shock at his refusal to accept her defeat. "What?"

Rassilon drove at her again. With little thought of care or tenderness, he snatched his hands hard against her face. He squeezed at her temples as though his hands with both sides of a metal vice. "I will tear down your barriers, _Doctor,_" he snarled as his search hit wall after wall within her mind. He faced storm clouds ahead of every wall and lightning crashed as he tried to shoulder through each barrier set up to protect her mind. "I will rip you out of her with my bare hands."

Rassilon's hands braced against the side of her face with enough pressure that it threatened to crush her skull was the only thing that held Rose on her feet as she cried out a single word along a distraught breath.

"Doctor!"


	40. Arrogance

A/N: If anyone can tell me how I can possibly leave reviews for fics at from an iPhone, could you please PM me? I've got my list of authors and fics to send raving kudos to – especially one Author who has just brilliantly captured my absolute and voracious fansquealing adoration for – but I cannot see how I can review. Same with Archive of Our Own … If I read via PC, easy to send reviews .. but by phone, which is where I do all of my reading, it actually refuses! Help out a reader!

Thanks!

Oh, and did you hear what David Tennant said about Rose and the Doc? Bazinga! Our kids are Canon! Squee…

~~oooOOOooo~~

The Meta-Crisis Doctor stumbled in his stand ahead of the monitor. His eyes were clenched tightly shut and he graveled out a moan of pure exertion as he desperately tried to maintain his stand with his fingers clutched against the edge of the table.

"I can't fight him," he hissed out hoarsely. "And Rose doesn't know how."

Eleven flicked his attention between the image of Rose crying out for them on the monitor, and to Ten, who was clearly struggling himself to battle the will of Rassilon.

"With you and Rose being bonded, he shouldn't even be able to get in there to begin with," Eleven spat.

Ten's eyes flashed open. His ancient brown eyes filled with firing webs of lightning fire. The battle raging within was obvious to both Amy and Eleven. "This is _Rassilon_," he growled in reply. "He created the bonding rites. He can do whatever the bloody hell he wants to." He stumbled to one side again. "I'm not strong enough. He's going to force me out of there."

"The Hell he is," Eleven thundered as he shot out of his seat and curled a lip at his brother. "You've lost your choice, Doctor. I'm in whether you want me to or not."

Ten's eyes still shone with lightning fire as his hands shot forward to clutch at Eleven's lapels to haul him toward him. "What are you bloody well waiting for? Help us out before he destroys her mind completely."

"He can fight one Doctor," Eleven growled as he slapped both hands either side of Ten's face. "But he hasn't got it in him to handle two of us."

Amy watched in stunned horror as both Doctors stood in a braced stand ahead of each other, both clutching with desperation at each other's faces. Their expressions were pained, their stances strong, but they both looked ready to crumble.

On the monitor ahead of them, Amy watched with quiet dismay Rose struggling to remain on her feet under Rassilon's grasp. For his part, Rassilon's victorious grin began to falter. A single bead of sweat rolled down his temple as his grin shifted toward a grimace.

A small boy rocketed toward them with a dismayed cry. He was quickly thrown by a strong backhand from Rassilon.

That single action became the catalyst for a sequence of events that held such horrific intensity that Amy found herself launching out of her chair and backing up against a TARDIS in search of safety.

At the small boy's yell, and of the image of him being thrown back into the crowd Rose's cries immediately ceased. Her eyes glowed hot as her body slowly stretched long and high against Rassilon's grasp. She began to shimmer with Gold light that brightened and suddenly exploded from within her and expanded throughout the room like a nuclear shockwave that burst through both monitors to strike into the chests of Ten, Eleven and Amy. The two Doctors let out simultaneous thunderous cries as they were propelled apart from each other. They stumbled an undignified gait into the table, and against chairs as they sought balance.

Eleven steadied himself against the back of the chair as he pointed a finger toward Ten. "Doctor," he ordered as his finger then shot in the direction of the TARDIS. "Go. Now."

He didn't need to be told twice. He snatched his blazer from the back of the chair as he bolted past it and dove inside his TARDIS machine. The doors had barely time to latch closed before the wheeze and whine of the Rotor echoed throughout the Grand Hall of Lungbarrow and the TARDIS dematerialized.

Eleven panted as he fell heavily into a chair and trundled it to in front of the monitor. He slapped his tongue against the dry roof of his mouth and swallowed dryly. "Hang in there Rose. He's on his way."

Amy was still shuddering as she tentatively moved into a seat beside him and looked warily at the monitor, and at the golden woman on the screen who was currently stalking a circle around Rassilon.

"Is that ..?"

The Doctor nodded and wiped at his brow with a handkerchief he'd pulled form his jacket pocket. "That," he said worriedly. "Is Bad Wolf: The single most dangerous creature in the entire universe."

"How dangerous?" Her voice was so meek it was barely audible.

"You don't want to know what she's capable of."

~~oooOOOooo~~

Rose was conscious of very little under the Rassilon's onslaught against her will. She knew that the Doctor had set up safe guards, and that he was inside her to double that protection, but she also knew the power of man who was the God of the Time Lords. She knew, mostly through her new consciousness, just how powerful Rassilon was. She prayed that the Doctor had the strength to help her to withhold the power inside her.

Peripherally, she noticed movement from the crowd. Her ears caught the cry of the young Time Lord she and River had befriended. As her eyes caught sight of the young boy, Rassilon's hand flew outward, to strike the young lad and propel him back toward the crowd.

She froze at the sight of the young Doctor being struck.

Something inside her snapped.

Her vision swam in golden amber filter, and the twin thunderbolts protecting her mind burst from within her. The collective gasp of all present inhaled the anger within her as it shot out as a shockwave across the Academy and over Cadon Mountain.

She felt her injured shoulder snap immediately back into place. Any pains within her instantly ceased. In a swift movement, she thrust her arms up, and then around Rassilon's arms. She snapped her arms downward to lock his forearms underneath hers, and then propelled her head forward to collide against his nose in a move much better suited to a fight on a soccer field than in the hallowed grounds of Cadon.

Rassilon was driven to his knees before her.

"Look at me," she demanded as she released his arms and slowly lowered into a crouch in front of the dazed Time Lord. She made the demand again when he didn't immediately raise his face to hers. "You demanded my presence, now I demand your focus," she snarled. "Look at me, Time Lord Master."

With a bloody grin on his face, he raised his face to look into hers. "There you are."

She drew herself to a stand and loomed down over him. She made damn sure that she looked with disgust down along her now repaired shoulder at him. "While I appreciate you bowing at my feet, rise to yours. You issued challenge. Let's _dance_."

Rassilon dared purr at the creature looming above him. "You. Are. Magnificent."

"And you're an idiot," she purred darkly in reply. "Do you have any idea at all just what you're trying to conjure up here?"

"I wanted to see you for myself," he answered smoothly as he thumbed blood from his nose. He then swept his arm past the gathered Time Lord professors. "And to show you to them." His eyes narrowed to Altamono specifically. "The ones who do not believe that you exist."

Her eyes flicked angrily toward Altamono. "I really don't care for their opinion." Her attention, but not her gaze shifted to the fear and confusion of the students. "They should not bear witness to this," she snarled.

"Perhaps they should," he argued softly as he wiped at a small dribble of blood that had trailed from his nose and over his lip. "Allow them to see Time in all her resplendent glory."

"No," she breathed as she straightened her back and held her head back. With a very slow blink in her eyes as they glimmered bright amber, she rounded both arms over her head to sweep them down around her. Immediate silence filled the room as Rose let her arms fold across her chest. "This is between us, Rassilon, not the children."

"Time Lords are not _children_," he admonished with a snap. His eyes snapped to Altamono when he heard the Time Lord expel a gasp in horror. "What is it?"

Altamono shook his head and levered up his arm to point toward the students. "What in the Gods has happened to them?"

Rassilon let his eyes fall to the pupils on the floor. His jaw gaped to see the entire gymnasium frozen in a single moment in time. He looked back toward Rose. "What have you done?"

Altamono stepped toward her with a finger raised and his eyes flared. "Release them _immediately_."

"Back away," she snarled with her own hand raised high in warning. "Or I will introduce you to the universe, atom by separating atom."

Altamono stopped his approach. His eyes narrowed. "What have you done with the students? Why are they frozen, yet we are not?"

"Time bubble," she answered smoothly. The look that she rewarded him with was akin to regarding him like a drooling idiot. The answer should have been immediately obvious to him. She sighed to have to explain it to him. "Inside our tiny pocket, time moves so quickly. So very quickly." She smiled at the young Doctor being safely cradled by River Song. "So quickly that they stand perfectly still by comparison. They can't see us. But _oh_ we can see them."

"Very clever," Rassilon purred. "But why would you want to do that and not stand before them like a Goddess?"

"Not really my thing," she answered with a sigh. "I'm more than happy to allow them the misguided belief that you stand before them as their mighty God, their Grand Master, Lord President, or whomever you wish to be called."

"You are so kind."

"I am, aren't I?"

Rassilon stood tall to loom over the petite blonde woman. He looked down his nose at her standing so low before him. "The protector of the Storm," he stated along a troubled voice. "Tell me, Rose Tyler. I struggled to release your power today. Is it because you have lack of control over it that is it only at the peril of your beloved Doctor that the Wolf is unleashed."

"Oh," she sang hauntingly. "You're a smart man. You tell me."

His face fell with disgust. "You have given _him_ control over you? The _Doctor_?"

Altamono coughed. "That mad fool?"

"That _brilliant_ man," she corrected sharply as she stalked around him. Her eyes were disgustedly steeled on Altamono, but her words directed at the other Lord. "Tell me, Rassilon," she purred as her eyes shifted toward him. "Does it burn you that you aren't the one in control?"

He was unfazed and merely smiled at her. "Oh. But I know just how to control you," he breezed victoriously along a breath. "If I wanted to I could. With my hands on one man, I can control you completely."

She laughed. "That's where you're wrong." She moved in close to let her words ghost across his cheek. "Noone can control me. Not you. Not him." She stepped back and peered through her brows at him. "Not even me."

"But _I_ can," the threatened in a whisper.

"Why do you presume that? Because you're a Lord of Time?" At his gleeful grin and nod of his head, Rose stepped backward. She set her hands on her hips and erupted into laughter. "Oh that's just _brilliant_! Who said that Time Lords were all boring, humourless, stuffy creatures with no sense of humour. You, my dear Rassilon, should really look into Comedy."

"You dare mock me," he growled.

Her amusement immediately fell to annoyance. "You dare suggest that you, a mortal creature, has control over Time?" She shook her head. "Time Lords are merely children allowed to play in Time's playground. You have no more control than any other creature who can access Vortex power to dance across time lines." She tapped thoughtfully at her lip. "Even members of the Human species upon Earth have that power." She skipped from foot to foot with a dramatic sway as though dancing. "Hop. Skip and jump through time. The only difference between other species and the Time Lords is that you pompous men of Gallifrey have prettier machines and seem to think that you control it all – time and space – and therefore claim yourselves to be the ultimate rulers of Time herself."

Rose smiled darkly. "The truth, Rassilon of Prydon. The truth is that you men who claim to be the _Lords of Time_ are actually no more in control of it than anyone else. Including those that you view as a lower species."

It was clear that Rassilon was in no mood to argue, nor did he want to dignify her comments with any of his own. Instead he folded his arms across his chest and glared down at her.

Rose mirrored his stance with an arrogant one of her own. "The Doctor tames me because I have allow him to. He stands as the protector of time, whereas you and your Council of Lords seek only to control, exploit and destroy it."

His lip twitched at her words. "If your words are true, then why would you think I am not looking to destroy you now?"

"Two reasons," she breathed softly. "One. You can't. And two. You need something from me." She winked coyly and sang her next line like a child taunting a sibling. "And I know what that _something_ is."

"You suggest that I can't defeat you and look across the universe for another daughter of time?" He snickered. "You aren't the only daughter of time in this universe, Rose Tyler."

"Perhaps not," she admitted. "But please. Go ahead and try," she challenged him darkly. "On _both_ counts."

"It will only take my hands upon one man, Rose Tyler. One foolish madman, and you are at my mercy."

He watched as she strode by him and dragged her finger down from his shoulder to his wrist. She looked up with an expression of … _seduction_? Seduction to do just what, exactly? He let his eyes – stone cold – shift with her every movement. Her hands pressed into his chest and she rolled up onto her toes to bring her mouth in line with his. Her eyes held on his lips a moment before they dragged up to look into his eyes. Her voice was a low whisper. "If you even so much as consider doing anything to him I will scatter you throughout all of Time and Space." Her voice became breathy, slightly intoxicating, as it ghosted by his ear. "And then, in your final moments of conscious awareness I will destroy everything else you hold dear. Including your hope of rescuing Gallifrey."

Rassilon shuddered; although he couldn't accurately detail just what emotion caused such a reaction. "If you destroy Gallifrey," he challenged with a swallow. "You will destroy your Doctor."

"Mmmm," she hummed. "Gallifrey is already gone."

Rassilon and the other Time Lords gasped in absolute horror. "How could you say such a thing?"

"I'm from a future beyond the Time War, Rassilon." She stepped back from him and lowered her head to glare through her brows at him. "I saw it all. Gallifrey burned," she snarled. "Mother Gallifrey cried in agony as she and her children burned. The Time Lords were defeated at their own hand; by their own arrogance."

"And what of the Daleks?"

"The Daleks continue to ravage the universe."

Altamono growled. "It's a lie!"

"What is?" She growled in response. "That the Lords of Time were so arrogant in their belief that they are the masters of time that they brought forth a war to end it all?" She blinked slowly. "You are not the Masters of Time, you fool. Time is _your_ master, and you will do well to keep that in mind as your civilization marches toward annihilation."

Rassilon's glare was dark. "How did it burn, Wolf? _Who _destroyed our home?"

Her eyes flashed. "You all did. Time Lords and Daleks alike."

"How were we defeated by the Daleks," he growled. "How do we stop them?"

"You can't," she said simply with a look down to her fingernails. "You really can't."

Rassilon let a brow rise slowly up his forehead as he stepped in toward her and lowered his mouth to beside her ear. "But _you_ can." He looked down to her mouth as she slowly looked up to him. "I _know _you can. It's prophesized. The Wolf will save Gallifrey."

"Perhaps," she sang inside a sigh. "Perhaps."

Rassilon remained quiet. His expression was neutral as he watched the woman in front of him consider her words. "Will you save Gallifrey?"

"If I am to help you," she said finally as her eyes shifted to his. "Then there is something that I need from you first."

"Anything," he breathed. "Your wish is…"

"Ulysses," she interrupted quickly. "Tell me how I can find him." She tilted her head in warning. "How I can find him inside _my own time_."

"Why?"

"Because the sentence you have imposed on the parents of the man I love is unreasonable and inhumane." Her eyes narrowed. "And if it stands that the powers of Gallifrey deem that the torturous death of a bonded pair is appropriate sentence for actions that are no more a crime than stealing a loaf of bread, then I will say right now that I won't aid and abet any designs to change Gallifrey's timeline." She cleared her throat. "Gallifrey is long dead in my time. It means nothing to me to leave it that way."

"Marissa committed treason," Rassilon snarled. "The punishment more than fits the crime."

"So does the demise of Gallifrey." She raised her head and looked behind her at the wheezing and whining sound of a TARDIS. "Doctor," she breathed lovingly.

"I will not give you what you're looking for," Rassilon growled. "I will not fall to the whim of a lovesick child…"

"Then your world will burn." She snapped her fingers to release the hold upon the students of Cadon. Immediately the deafening silence morphed to a more comforting white noise. "This discussion is over." Her eyes still aglow, she looked toward River Song. "The Storm. He's coming."

River Song offered a frown of confusion. As she was locked outside of the time bubble, she had missed the entire exchange. "Oh. Okay." She shook herself quickly and jumped to her feet at the sound of the materializing TARDIS. "What'd I miss?"

Rose, still golden, shrugged and turned on her heel at the sound of the telltale creak of the TARDIS door opening. "Nothing. Just typical pompous Time Lord Arrogance at play." Rose's anger creased face opened up to a smile as her pinstriped Doctor popped his head through the doorway and gave her a broad – if not faked - grin. "So very handsome."

"Are you okay?" River queried with genuine concern to see her lightly sway on her feet. She cupped at Rose's elbow. "You're not going to go all psycho on us, are you?"

Rose shook her head and grinned as she leaned back to launch to a run into the Doctor's waiting arms. "I've missed you!" Her launch forward was halted by a large hand on her arm. She yelped as she was roughly pulled back and then spun to face Rassilon's angered glare.

"We are not yet done," he snarled into her face. His other hand moved to grab at her other arm and he hauled her up against his chest so that her feet weren't touching the floor. "You don't leave until I say you can."

"Rassilon. Stop," The Doctor shouted as he moved into a run toward them. "Put her down. You don't know what trouble you're about to be in."

"I know what I'm doing," he growled in response over Rose's shoulder. "Stay where you are, Doctor."

Rose's voice crooned evenly from an inch away from Rassilon's face. "Are you very sure about that, Time Lord?"

Rassilon flicked his eyes from the Doctor, who was dancing from foot to foot with terrified energy, to Rose, who was calmly staring at him with an unreadable expression. Her look was so even, so calm, and so emotionless, that it gave the large Time Lord a start. He refused, however, to let her feet back on the ground. He made do with false bravado. "We still have much to talk about, you and I. And until you agree to my terms, you don't leave Gallifrey."

Rose blinked.

River frowned and looked warily to the Doctor, who looked more anxious than she'd ever seen him. "Doctor?"

"Oh," he croaked. "It might be a good idea to move the pupils out of here."

"That bad?"

He nodded with a wince. "Could be."

Rose could sense the movement of the pupils being moved from the room – vaguely. Her focus was tight upon the brow of the Time Lord who held her with such tightness that she was beginning to bruise. She didn't squirm. She didn't move. She didn't whimper. She barely breathed. Her eyes, however, golden, flared and hot, practically bored holed in Rassilon's forehead.

Finally, she spoke. Her voice was so quiet that it was barely a whisper. "Let me down."

"I will not."

"You will."

"I will see that you are held in contempt…"

"Contempt of _what_?" she spat inside a laugh. "Contempt for your obnoxious and pretentious attitude toward all you deem unworthy to his Lordship?" She shifted forward in his hold. "Guilty."

"You will come with me."

"I will not," she snarled as she finally gave a single and solid kick against his shin. She was dropped quickly and smirked at his wince. "Sorry."

"No you're not," he charged as he reached for her again. His hand snagged her wrist. "Noone defies Rassilon. You will do as I demand of you."

Her eyes lit brightly enough to illuminate her entire face. "Gallifrey will burn – and time will be cleansed of the rule of Rassilon!"

"Rose," the Doctor yelled desperately from the doorway as he launched into a run toward her, River hot on his heels. "No! Stop!"

Rose's head swung to shine bright eyes to the panicked Doctor. "I'm sorry," she sang. "So sorry."

"Rose. Stop this!"

Rose's head snapped back toward Rassilon, and with a deep growl, she slapped both of her hands against the sides of his head, striking his temples with her fingers. She held firm as the Time Lord Master was driven to his knees in front of her.

The remaining Time Lords, the Doctor, and River shielded their eyes with their forearms as the light from the pairing of Rassilon and the Bad Wolf blasted hotly from between them. Rassilon boomed a yell for freedom. Rose thundered a growl of victory.

And then it was over.

With a vacuumous hiss and pop, Rose separated herself from Rassilon and stumbled a staggered gait backward. She tripped and fell, but was caught quickly by her waiting Doctor, who scooped her up into his arms.

"Are you okay, Rose?"

"Yeah," she panted hoarsely.

The Doctor wore a worried frown as he looked toward Rassilon, who swayed uneasily on his knees. "Rassilon?"

Rassilon fell forward onto his hands, but found energy to raise one hand to assure his fellow Lords that he was fine. "Doctor. Get your Bond Mate out of here." His head lifted to look upon him and to Rose with fear and loathing. "Leave Gallifrey, and don't return."

"I guarantee you we won't," he vowed with a drop of his head. "Nothing good ever comes from being here anyway."

Rassilon tenderly drew himself to a stand and did his utmost to stand tall. "Rose Tyler. You have the information that you require." He coughed. "I trust that you will now reconsider."

Rose gave him a silent look and then ducked her head into the Doctor's shoulder, hiding behind his lapel. Any sign of Bad Wolf was gone. "My head, Doctor. S'Killing me."

"I know, Sweetheart. Let's go home," he said softly, before he passed a look to River. "The little guy. Is he okay?"

"Yeah," River answered with a nod.

"Good. Good." He pressed his lips into Rose's hair. He briefly closed his eyes and then opened them and regarded the remaining Time Lords with a respectful bowing of his head. "We've gotto go. Thank you for your hospitality."

River gave a boisterous wave as she followed the Doctor and Rose into the TARDIS. "Till we meet again, boys. Stay arrogant!" As the doors closed, she turned on the pair. "Okay. Do we want to explain just what the hell happened back there?"

"Later," the Doctor answered solemnly as he set Rose onto the jumpseat and moved to the control console. "Let's just get back to Lungbarrow."


	41. Telepathy

A/N: Spent yesterday at the Toronto Comicon with my little 10-year old voracious and unrepentant Whovian son … He was most disappointed that he wasn't able to get a photo taken with Karen Gillan (because she arrived late), but I managed to sate him with a new TARDIS backpack, some DW artwork/Comics/Figurines … There was way too much tits and ass on display from some of the female cosplayers … c'mon ladies, have ya heard of tights? And double-sided tape might be an option for you if you think that all you need to cover up your nips are pair of suspenders … But. Meh. His first time at comicon, and he loved it.

I'm claustrophobic … So I hated every second of it … But I did pick up a neat pair of TARDIS leggings for myself … heh heh

Mindless fluff below. I hope you enjoy.

~~oooOOOooo~~

The Doctor wasted little time in rushing past the console of his young TARDIS, his young wife tucked under his arm, with the full intent to hurry her into the infirmary for a check up. He was extremely wary of the Bad Wolf, of what it had done to her in the past, and what it could possibly have done to her this time around. He wasn't going to waste any time fiddling about with inputting coordinates back to Lungbarrow. Time could be too short to do that. The Time Lords and Cadon would have to put up with a faded old Police Box in their training hall for a little bit longer than they'd be thrilled with.

"C'mon, Rose. Let's get you checked out," he breathed in as calm a voice as he could manage as he moved them toward the entrance to the hallway.

Rose shook her head and planted her feet in the grating. "I'm fine."

His hand fell to grasp at hers and he tugged firmly to urge her to follow. "Ahh. But it won't hurt for us to take a little look, right?"

"I just want to get out of here," she said with a shrug as she jutted her chin toward the centre console of the TARDIS, which was pulsing a deep orange colour. "I'm feeling perfectly fine, thank you. I think our girl wants out of here as much as I do."

He raised his eyes to the console and winced. His mind warred with just what was more pressing right now, his Rose or his ship's urgent pleading to depart Cadon.

Rose won out, of course.

"It's okay, we're okay for now." He tugged at her hand. "You, on the other hand…"

"Am perfectly fine," she finished for him as she tugged her hand free and jogged toward the console. She looked to River Song, and then up at the monitor. She caressed the console with loving tenderness. "We'll get you out of here, Sweetheart. I know. I know that you're not happy to be here."

The Doctor slumped in a very undistinguished non-Time Lord manner. "Ro-o-ose," he whined. "Please."

She spun and leaned her backside into the edge of the console. "Fine. Sonic me."

"What?"

"Sonic me," she repeated. "I'll acquiesce a sonic scan, if you promise me that you'll multitask and get us out of here." She pointed to the door. "Time Lords, Doctor. Lots of Time Lords out there who know how to get into TARDISes."

"She's right," River agreed quickly as she took position beside Rose. "Rassilon seems pretty eager to get his hands on her. You want to waste time and let him change his mind and come in here after her?"

The Doctor curled a hotly annoyed lip and leaned in between both women to push up a lever and press a button on the console. "Inside the three minutes you've been arguing with me on getting you checked out, Rose, I could have already set the scanners on you in the infirmary _and_ had us in the Vortex." The rotor whined and wheezed loudly as it dematerialized from Cadon and flew up into the Vortex to orient herself before returning to Gallifrey and Lungbarrow. "All arguing with me does is just waste time."

"Then perhaps you shouldn't argue with me, Doctor."

"No. _You_ shouldn't be arguing with _me_," he countered sharply, his annoyance crustal clear to both women. "Now. We're off Gallifrey. Would you care to listen to your Doctor and get checked out?"

"No," she argued with quite a handful of petulance inside her glare. "Because I am perfectly fine."

"Might be a good idea to have a looksee," River advised softly. "You and Rassilon." She blew out a breath. "That was quite something, Rose. More energy than I've seen outside of. Well. Outside of anything, really."

"Precisely," the Doctor agreed quickly, with definite thrill at having backup in the form of River Song. "We're safe in the Vortex right now, so we have time."

Rose frowned. "You mean she isn't just going to materialize at Lungbarrow?" A brow flicked. "Is she okay?"

He shrugged. "She's very young, remember. Our girl – oh so clever that she is – is acquainting herself with the Vortex before she heads back to Lungbarrow."

"Why would she do that," Rose queried suspiciously.

"Because she's so very new to this," he explained quickly. "It's important for her to be able to get up into the vortex and immediately be able to very quickly orientate herself to materialize as per the coordinates I've entered. Sometimes we have to hop skip and jump it really quickly, you know, in those emergency situations, and she needs to know how to be able to burst in and out of the Vortex with precise accuracy…"

"Bullshit," she challenged with a snarl as her arms snaked into a fold across her chest.

The Doctor's eyes flared and his jaw twitched with a start at her challenge. Slowly, he angled his head to one side with about as much deliberation as a dog cocking its head in analysis. "Excuse me?"

"You heard me."

"I heard you disrespecting me," he said carefully.

"Indeed," she muttered as she pulled from the console and spun in place to drop into the jumpseat. She looked along her shoulder at him. "But tit for tat and all that," she said with a sniff. "You get all cagy on me, and I'll throw it right back atcha."

"I'm not being cagy."

"We've done three lots of travel in this beautiful girl since her birth a few days ago. Once through a parallel wormhole into this universe into the vortex. Then another to Kasterborous, and then to Lungbarrow. At no point did she deem it necessary to _orient _herself in the vortex before landing." She paused to watch as River whistled softly to herself and wandered to a coral strut across the console from her. Rose kept her eyes on the Doctor's future wife as she continued. "So why now, Doctor?" She let her eyes move to him. "Why did my beautiful ship decide, right at this moment, that orientating herself in the vortex rather than simply returning to Lungbarrow was the option of the hour?"

"I don't know," he answered darkly. "I'm not the ship."

"No, but you're her pilot, aren't you?" She tilted her head at him. "Isn't she supposed to go where you tell her to go?" She ignored the pulsing hum of the ship that could have been a chuckle. "That _is_ what a pilot does, yeah? They tell the ship where to go?"

He thumbed at his nose. He tugged at his ear. He cleared his throat. "You know as well as I do that the TARDIS doesn't always go where I want her to go."

She licked at her teeth under closed lips and nodded a moment before she made a sucking noise with her tongue. "You mean like landing us on Gallifrey nine hundred years earlier than the time coordinates you initially set." She said flatly.

"Exactly," he replied with an urgent huff. "Mind of her own, this one." He hooked his hand around her elbow and coaxed her to move with him toward the entrance to the main hallway. "So while we wait for her to do what she needs to do to get us back to Lungbarrow – hopefully in the same time that we left it – we can get you to the infirmary for a quick scan. Better that we get you sorted out now rather than later…"

Rose remained rooted to the floor. She flicked his hand from her elbow. "I happen to know that I am very fine right now, Doctor. There's nothing for you to be concerned about." She tapped at her temple. "With you and the other Doctor digging inside my head – without permission I might add…"

"You let me in," he argued.

"Yes, I did. But I didn't let _him_ in there." Her eyes were narrowed and annoyed. "He has no right to be inside my head, Doctor. No right. How could you let him in there?"

"We had no choice," he pleaded softly. "Rassilon was frying your mind."

Rose pursed her lips and shook her head. "Actually. No. He wasn't." She sighed on a high note. "He was trying to open my ability to be able to call and control the power at will." She hooked her hair behind her ear. "You have it so tightly locked away in there that.."

"Because you'll burn, Rose," he argued along a worried tone. "The power is too strong." He cupped her face in his hands and looked imploringly into her eyes. "You know what it's done to the both of us in the past. I'm not letting it take you away from me." He dropped a hand to punch at his chest. "_I_ need you," he pleaded. "By Rassilon, Rose. This whole universe needs you."

"I know," she managed on a breaking voice through a gentle smile as she lovingly stroked at his arm. "And as I have repeatedly told you: I'm not going anywhere. I'm with you forever."

"Rose…"

"I promise you, Doctor. I'm never leaving you. Bad Wolf or not, you're stuck with me."

He snatched her in for a hug and stared with watering eyes along the top of her head toward River Song. "I'm scared, Rose," he admitted shakily. "I know what I become when I lose you. I don't want to go through that again."

"Selfish much," she said inside a forced laugh.

"Yeah," he croaked as his hold tightened around her. "Yeah."

Rose pulled back from him and rubbed at both his arms as she rolled onto her toes to press a chaste kiss against his mouth. "You're entitled I guess." She flicked up a finger in a teasing warning. "But just this once, okay?"

He shook his head, letting his hand chase her as she stepped away from him. "Nah. When it comes to you, the selfishness is ongoing." His hand dropped to his side as Rose escaped and dropped into the jump seat. "So no scan then?"

"The TARDIS has already completed one," she answered with a wink. "Smart girl we have here, she scanned us all as we crossed the threshold." She paused to let his face fall into an _ahhh_ of realization before continuing. "We made some improvements, she 'n me. I'd have given you an updated operating manual – but we both know that you'd just end up tossing it into the vortex, so…"

His face cracked into a smile as his head dropped and his hands settled onto his hips. "Guilty as charged, of course." He raised his eyes up to hers. "When we get back to Pete's World, it looks like you, TARDIS and me have some debriefing to do."

"Oh," she purred with a giggle in response. "You can _debrief_ me any time you want, Doctor. The TARDIS, however. Well, I'm very sure she can provide an adequate _debriefing room_…"

He reddened immediately upon hearing River Song let up a sharp laugh. "Oh. Well. Yes. Indeed." He cleared his throat and quickly moved to the console. His voice was definitely higher than usual when he continued. "Let's get back to Lungbarrow, shall we? I'm sure that River Song is eager to return to her. Uhm. Yes. So. Allons-y then."

"Take your time, Cowboy," River Song crooned with an amused chuckle. "No need to rush these things."

His eyes flicked up to meet hers. While he said nothing in response, the glint in his eye and the twist in his lip spoke volumes. He smiled as he thrust up another lever on the console.

"Lungbarrow," he said finally. "And we should be there rather shortly." His eyes shifted to Rose, who seemed to be studying him with a stern expression of absolute concentration. "And then we can, uhm, _discuss_ things, yeah?"

She said nothing.

He raised a brow. "Rose?"

Still, Rose remained silent; wearing that intense glare of concentration upon the Doctor.

He adjusted his tie and leaned down over the console to distract himself from the stare. "So. River. How did you like the young me, then?" He cleared his throat with a minor frown and rolled back his shoulders to let his blazer slip off his arms. "I was a cute young Time Lord, wasn't I?"

River had a single brow seated high on her forehead. The Doctor was looking very uncomfortable – and was sounding it if the squeak in his voice meant anything – and she was fairly sure that the discomfort wasn't solely because he was eager to get to the debriefing.

"Are you okay, Doctor," she asked carefully.

He cleared his throat again and actually winced as he loosened the knot of his tie and started to roll up the sleeves of his oxford. "Yep. Okay. Very fine. Better than fine. Most assuredly alright. Right as rain me. King of Okay." He wiped at his brow. "Do you think it's a little warm in here? I think it is. TARDIS, care to lower the temperature in here. Thanks, old girl."

River looked toward Rose, who still studiously studied the Doctor, and then looked back to the man at the console. "Oh-ka-a-ay," she breathed.

The Doctor let out a peep and pressed both hands down into the edge of the TARDIS console. He dropped his head low and took a couple of deep breaths. "Rose. Please stop."

"I'm not doing anything," she purred with amusement.

"You know very well what you're doing," he fired back on a croaking voice.

"Still not doing anything," she answered smoothly with her eyes still locked tight on him. "Am I River?"

River shrugged with a smile. "She seems to be just sitting quietly, Doctor. I haven't seen her move or get up to anything out of the ordinary."

"Thank you," Rose chuckled. Her eyes were still squarely focused on the Doctor. "See? Not doing anything."

He closed his eyes and let out a short moan as he seemed to dip to one side involuntarily. "Rose," he whimpered as he quickly caught himself and straightened up. He gave himself a shake and turned his head to fire a hot glare toward her. "That's enough of that if you please."

"Enough of what," she whispered with a single sided smirk.

He answered her question with a narrowing of his eyes. "You know _exactly_ what. And it's not entirely appropriate given that we're not exactly alone right now."

She licked at her lip and leaned forward slightly to increase her focus. "Mmhmm."

River was intrigued, although she had a rather nagging feeling that she quite probably shouldn't be. "You know," she started with a point toward the doorway to the main corridor entrance. "I think this might be a good point for me to ask where the ladies is. It's been a long day, and I really should think about using the facilities and perhaps give the two of you a moment."

Her breath drew in hard as the Doctor suddenly made a swift movement across the console to stand in front of Rose. He folded his arms tightly across his chest and loomed down over her. "You want to play that game, _sweetheart_," he growled out threateningly. "You really want to do this with me?"

Rose was kind enough to squirm just slightly under the glare of the Storm. "Uhm."

"Because – trust me – you _really_ don't want to issue this challenge." He leaned down to press his fists into the arm rests either side of where his wife was seated. "I have that unfair advantage of being quite the specialist in this area."

She shuddered under his gaze. "Oh-ka-a-a-y," she managed before her breath suddenly hitched and her face flushed crimson. "Oh, God."

He pushed himself back up to a stand ahead of her and fisted his hands deep into the pockets of his trousers. "Close, but not quite," he said with a smug smirk. "So, are you done, or are you still…" His head tilted backward and he gave quite a distinct shudder. "By Rassilon, Rose," he gritted through clenched teeth. "That's just dirty."

She grinned darkly with that tongue-touched smile that drove the Doctor mad. "It is…" She squirmed and moaned loudly along a broken breath. "God. Doctor, how long until we land?"

He palmed a button on the console behind him, and the whine and wheeze of the engines stopped. "We're here."

"Oh thank God for that," River yelped as she pushed herself from the railing and bolted to the door. She hauled the door open and burst into the Great Hall of Lungbarrow in time to miss whatever just took place behind her that made Rose squeal out and the Doctor growl a moan.

She pulled to a slam the door behind her. "Whatever you do. _Don't_ go anywhere near the inside of this machine for a long _long_ while." She shuddered. "Tell me, Doctor, is telepathic foreplay typical with the Lords of Time?"

Doctor number Eleven let his stunned look fall to something a little less concerned. He rolled his shoulder and cleared his throat in discomfort. "Oh. Yes. Did he actually… My apology that you had to be there for that, River. I'll have a discussion with him regarding his decorum."

"No need, really," she offered with a smirk. "If I had the same opportunity with a certain Doctor, I doubt that I would've held back." She passed a look to Amy. "It looked pretty intense."

"It is," the Doctor offered. "It's more than just the physical sensations. Telepathically, you get the entire pantheon of physical and emotional sensations in one overwhelming moment." HE then reddened and coughed. "Not that we should ever be discussing anything of this nature at all. It's not wholly appropriate, nor is it at all relevant to any discussion we should ever have about anything."

Amy leaned in close to the reddening Time Lord. "If I ever want to get you so embarrassed that you cease to function in that Time-Lordy way, I believe we have the trigger."

"Pond…"

"Did they have priests and monks on your panet; because you'd make a pretty good candidate for it."

"Why do you tease me so, Pond?"

"Because it's fun, and I'm bored." She squeaked as both doors to the TARDIS screeched open. "What the?"

Both Rose and the Meta Crisis Doctor seemed to be shoved out of the TARDIS doors and were smartly cracked across their asses by the slamming of the doors behind them. Rose's Cadon tunic and pants were haphazardly skewed and undone. The Doctor's Oxford appeared to be missing all of its buttons and was completely free from the tuck of his trousers. His trousers were undone at the button and zipper, but he held them up with the clutch of one hand.

Flustered and panting, both Rose and the Doctor spared a guilty and chided look between each other. The look only lasted for a second before they suddenly burst into simultaneous laughter. Rose clutched at her belly, the Doctor lay his head against the door of the TARDIS.

"I guess," Rose managed between laughs. "That she didn't approve."

"She's no fun, is she?" The Doctor wiped a tear from his eye. "Such a prude."

She sniffed and calmed herself down somewhat, offering a wink to the Eleventh Doctor and his companions. "So-o-o-o? How are we all doing then?"

"TARDIS a little upset with you, then?" Amy teased with a laugh.

She held her thumb and index finger about a millimeter apart. "Yep. A little bit."

"Up against the console is not TARDIS approved, then?"

"Apparently not," Rose answered with her laughter bubbling back up in her chest. "Definitely not, in fact." She looked down to her hand as the Doctor's hand grasped at hers. "Doctor?"

He leaned down to her ear. "All is not lost. I have an idea," he promised. "Come with me. Run!"

She peeped as she was dragged – at a run – by the hand behind the Doctor.

Amy, the Doctor, and River Song watched with amused expressions as they disappeared around the corner.

"Such a bouncy little puppy that one," River mused quietly.

"Which one," Amy queried with all seriousness. "You ask me, they both have that pretty bouncy puppy quality about them." She then turned quickly to River and did a fast pat-down scan of her daughter. "Are you okay? Nothing we need to worry about?"

"I'm fine," River assured on a flat tone. "I wasn't the one turned into a golden Goddess and manhandled by the Grand Master Kingpin of the Time Lord Society." She looked down to the Doctor. "How are _you_ holding up?"

"I'm alright," he muttered. "The king of alright, I am. Perfectly fine, right as rain."

"It scares me just how much alike the two of you are," River moaned as she rubbed her eyes.

"We are essentially the same man," he defended. He leaned back in his seat. "I will assume that today was a total bust; that we didn't manage to come across the information that we required to go to our next phase of getting my Dad out of jail so we can send my brother back to his parallel and I can get back to my life of not having to be near him. Am I correct?"

"Assumption is widely known to be the mother of all screw ups," River said along a sigh. "And in this case it is most certainly accurate."

"Meaning?"

"Meaning that Rose and Rassilon claim that she has the information that we require." She answered. "What that is, I'm not entirely sure of at this point, but I'm confident that the moment she and her Doctor have finished _celebrating_ the fact that she made it out of being the Big Bad Wolf in one piece that she'll let us know."

"That could take a while," Amy moaned. "I've been cooped up in here all day and am getting a case of cabin fever. I need to get out, get some dinner or something."

"Not safe for you out there," the Doctor warned. "We're in a time where off worlders aren't very welcome on Gallifrey."

"Yes," River said in agreement. "The pompous, self righteous, holier than thou Lords of Gallifrey aren't welcome to we lesser species."

"I'd be offended by that remark if it wasn't completely accurate," the Doctor gruffed. He looked to the TARDIS. "Why don't you join your husband," he offered. "Rory has engaged himself quite happily in the Entertainment Room for the entire day."

She leaned down to him. "I am not a man. I can't sit in front of the telly all day and do nothing but scratch my balls, fart, burp, eat and sleep."

"Okay. On _that_ one I'll take offence." He scratched at his hair. "It is inaccurate to suggest that all men are made of the same mould."

"Oh, I dunno," Amy sang. "You've been watch the telly all day here."

"I've been monitoring…" He shook himself. "No. I'm not going to dignify that with a response."

"I have silenced the Doctor," Amy cheered. "I believe I have rendered you speechless, and therefore have proven my charge that all men are the same."

Rose's voice sang in from deep in the corridor. "Never has a truer sentiment been spoken." She appeared out of the darkness, alone, and with a smile on her face. "All you lot. Same. Any planet. Any universe."

The Doctor watched her approach with a neutral gaze. "Where's my brother, then?"

"Passed out in the heart of the house," Rose answered with a victorious rise of her arms above her head. "Shagged him to unconsciousness."

River made a show of looking at her watch. "I have to say, Rose. That didn't take very long."

"Quality, not quantity," she defended with a wink. She tapped at her temple. "Involve this, and he's a goner. Every. Time."

Amy chuckled and nudged the Doctor. "So he's a roll over go to sleep kind of guy, then?"

The Doctor cleared his throat in discomfort. "Really, ladies? Is this something that requires discussion?"

All three answered simultaneously. "Yes!"

"Then you may go and blog elsewhere, please?" He swept his hand in the air to shoo them away. "I don't desire to partake in any such discussion." As River opened her mouth to speak, he flicked his finger at her. "After regeneration, he and I became two very different men. Attempting to compare based on … _him_ … is not wholly representative of.." His eyes flashed open. "And why am I even engaging and trying to defend myself here?"

His fluster brought amusement out in all three women. Rose patted him on his shoulder, and then pressed a kiss to his cheek. "My darling Doctor. Don't let us get to you."

"Hard not to, Rose."

She put her arms around his neck from behind and fingered at the buttons of his shirt. "Do you still have it," she queried softly.

He drew his fingers along her forearm and sighed deeply. "I do."

"Where is it?"

He twisted his thumb under the collar of his shirt to draw free a thick chain. At its middle hung a silver key. "My TARDIS locks were made to fit this key, and all of the keys I've ever cut for myself and any companion were cut from this one."

"So all this time?"

He held at her arms. "I've never taken it off. My Arkytior gave it to me. It's the most precious thing I own."

"You sentimental oaf," she whispered against his ear with a soft laugh. "I love you. You know that?"

"And I, you," he vowed as he leaned his head against hers. "Since I was nine years old."

Rose kissed at the top pf his head and pulled herself away from him. She sidled across to her TARDIS and leaned against the doors for a moment. "River. You can pilot a TARDIS, yeah?"

"I can."

"Terrific," she cheered. "I need you to take us on a quick jaunt."

"Oh?" She smiled, knowing that anything alongside Rose was set to be an adventure. "And where were we planning on going?"

"Torchwood," Rose answered. "I have to pick up a few supplies before we get back to the time _that we were supposed to have been in_ to jailbreak Daddy Doctor." She grinned. "How'd you like to meet your mother in law?"

The Doctor frowned. "Rose. Perhaps you should wait for your Doctor to wake up before you think of Dimension hopping to another parallel."

"Oh. We'll be fine, Doctor," Rose said with a dismissive roll of her eyes. "My girl piloted by this girl will get us there and back in no time at all."

"I'm in," Amy yelped quickly. "No arguments. I need freedom from this haunted home and creepy moving furniture."

"Sure," Rose said with a shrug. "The more the merrier. Mother will love to meet you both."

"Rose, River, Amy, no," the Doctor warned with a growl. "Don't you dare."

All three leapt to him to kiss his cheek, and then darted off before he could move toward Rose's TARDIS.

Rose gave him a wave just before she shut the door. "Be back in ten minutes, Doctor. Promise."


End file.
